Peace, power, and plenty

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Southern Branch
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University of California

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PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY
BY ORISON SWETT MARDEN

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Innka bg (J^rtann ^m?tt Murhtn

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CHARACTER OPPORTUNITY

CHEERFULNESS IRON WILL

GOOD MANNERS ECONOMY

THE POWER OF PERSONALITY

SIAIENOUMM-SaOUL,
iios RHQSUBS, cam.

^

Pl^tttg

BY

ORISON SWETT MARDEN

Author of

'Every Man a King," "Pushing to the Front," etc., and

Editor of "Success Magazine"

'* Your ideal is a prophecy of
what you shall at last unveil."

7^2,^-7

NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.

PUBLISHERS

i J t t * 1 '

Copyright, 1909,
BY ORISON SWETT MARDEN

Published, January, 1909

Second Edition

c i t ' ' c ' ' < ' c ' ' '

TO

MY WIFE

/

PREFACE

EVER before in the history
of mankind has there been
such an awakening to the
great possibiHties of the
power of right thinking as
we are now witnessing in all
civilized countries.
Metaphysical schools are springing up under
different names in all parts of the enlightened
world. People are getting hold of little bits
of one great divine truth, a new gospel of
optimism and love, a philosophy of sweetness
and light, which seems destined to furnish
a universal principle upon which people of all
nations, of varying philosophies and creeds,
can unite for the betterment of the race.

The basic principle of this great metaphysi-
cal movement has opened up many possibilities
of mind building, character building, body
building, and success building which are des-
tined to bring untold blessings to the world.

We are all conscious that there is something
in us which is never sick, never sins, and never
dies, a power back of the flesh but not of it,
which connects us with Divinity, makes us one
with the Infinite Life.

vii

i«A

VIU

PREFACE

We are beginning to discover something of
the nature of this tremendous force back of
the flesh, this power which heals, regenerates,
rejuvenates, harmonizes, and upbuilds, and
which will ultimately bring us into that state
of blessedness which we instinctively feel is
the birthright of every human being.

To present in clear, simple language, shorn
of all technicalities, the principles of the new
philosophy which promises to lift life out of
commonness and discord and make it worth
while; to show how these principles may be
grasped and applied in a practical way in
every-day living to each person's own indi-
vidual case is the object of this volume.

There is a growing belief that " God never
made His work for man to mend," We are
just beginning to discover that the same Prin-
ciple which created us, repairs, restores, re-
news, heals us ; that the remedies for all our
ills are inside of us, in Divine Principle, which
is the truth of our being. We are learning that
there is an immortal principle of health in
every individual, which, if we could utilize,
would heal all our wounds and furnish a balm
for all the hurts of mankind.

The author attempts to show that the body
is but the mind externalized, the habitual men-

PREFACE

IX

tal state outpictured ; that the bodily condi-
tion follows the thought, and that we are
sick or well, happy or miserable, young or old,
lovable or unlovable, according to the degree
in which we control our mental processes.
He shows how man can renew his body by
renewing his thought, or change his body, his
character, by changing his thought.

The book teaches that man need not be the
victim of his environment, but can be the mas-
ter of it; that there is no fate outside of him
which determines his life, his aims; that each
person can shape his own environment, create
his own condition ; that the cure for poverty,
ill-health, and unhappiness lies in bringing
one's self through scientific thinking into con-
scious union with the great Source of Infinite
life, the Source of opulence, of health, and
harmony. This conscious union with the Cre-
ator, this getting in tune with the Infinite, is
the secret of all peace, power, and prosperity.

It emphasizes man's oneness with Infinite
Life, and the truth that when he comes into
the full realization of his inseparable con-
nection with the creative energy of the uni-
verse, he shall never know lack or want again.

This volume shows how man can stand por-
ter at the door of his mind, admitting only his

X PREFACE

friend thoughts, only those suggestions that
will produce joy, prosperity; and excluding
all his enemy thoughts which would bring dis-
cord, suffering, or failure.

It teaches that " your ideal is a prophecy of
what you shall at last unveil," that " thought
is another name for fate/' that we can think
ourselves out of discord into harmony, out of
disease into health, out of darkness into light,
out of hatred into love, out of poverty and
failure into prosperity and success.

Before a man can lift himself, he must lift
his thought. When we shall have learned to
master our thought habits, to keep our minds
open to the great divine inflow of life force,
we shall have learned the secret of human
blessedness. Then a new era will dawn for
the race.

O. S. M.

January, 1909.

PAGE

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I

THE POWER OF THE MIND TO COMPEL THE

BODY 3

CHAPTER n

POVERTY A MENTAL DISABILITY 1 7

CHAPTER HI

THE LAW OF OPULENCE

37

CHAPTER IV

CHARACTER-BUILDING AND HEALTH-BUILDING

DURING SLEEP 53

CHAPTER V

HEALTH THROUGH RIGHT THINKING 69

CHAPTER VI

MENTAL CHEMISTRY 87

CHAPTER VII

IMAGINATION AND HEALTH 105

CHAPTER VIII

HOW SUGGESTION INFLUENCES HEALTH II5

CHAPTER IX

WHY GROW OLD? I3I

xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER X I'AGE

y=THE MIRACLE OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 1 63

CHAPTER XI

AFFIRMATION AND AUDIBLE SUGGESTION 1 85 l**^

CHAPTER Xn

DESTRUCTIVE AND CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION 207

CHAPTER Xni

WORRY THE DISEASE OF THE AGE 223

CHAPTER XIV

FEAR, THE CURSE OF THE RACE 239

CHAPTER XV

SELF-CONTROL VS. THE EXPLOSIVE PASSIONS 269

CHAPTER XVI

GOOD CHEER — GOD'S MEDICINE 287

CHAPTER XVII

THE SUN-DIAL'S MOTTO 303

CHAPTER XVIII

"as YE sow" 317

I. THE POWER OF THE MIND TO
COMPEL THE BODY

IsOS PiHC*2liBS, GFxlX.

I. THE POWER OF THE MIND TO
COMPEL THE BODY

Our destiny changes with our thought; we shall be-
come what we wish to become, do what we wish to
do, when our habitual thought corresponds with our
desire.

"The 'divinity that shapes our ends' is in ourselves;
it is our very self."

jONG before Henry Irving's
death, his physician cau-
tioned him against playing
his famous part in " The
Bells," on account of the
tremendous strain upon his
heart. Ellen Terry, his lead-
ing woman for many years, says in her
biography of him :

Every time he heard the sound of bells, the throbbing
of his heart must have nearly killed him. He used
always to turn quite white — there was no trick about it.
It was imagination acting physically on the body.

His death as Matthias — the death of a strong, robust
man — was different from all his other stage deaths.
He did really almost die — he hnagined death with such
horrible intensity. His eyes would disappear upward,
his face grow gray, his limbs cold.

No wonder, then, that the first time that the Wolver-
hampton doctor's warning was disregarded, and Henr>'

4 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

played "The Bells" at Bradford, his heart could not
stand the strain. Within twenty-four hours of his last
death as "Matthias" he was dead.

As Becket on the following night — the
night of his death — his physicians said that
he was undoubtedly dying throughout the
entire performance. So buoyed up and stim-
ulated was he by his great zeal for his work
and the bracing influence of his audience that
he actually held death at bay.

It is a common experience for actors who
are ill to be cured for a time and to be entirely
forgetful of their aches and pains under the
stimulus of ambition and the brain-quicken-
ing influence of their audiences.

Edward H. Sothern says that he feels a
great increase of brain activity when he is on
the stage, and this is accompanied by a cor-
responding physical exhilaration. " The very
air I breathe," says Mr. Sothern, " seems more
stimulating. Fatigue leaves me at the stage
door; and I have often given performances
without any suffering when I should other-
wise have been under a doctor's care." Noted
orators, great preachers, and famous singers
have had similar experiences.

That " imperious must " which compels the

POWER OF THE MIND 5

actor to do his level best, whether he feels
like it or not, is a force which no ordinary
pain or physical disability can silence or over-
come. Somehow, even when we feel that it
is impossible for us to make the necessary
effort, when the crisis comes, when the emer-
gency is upon us, when we feel the prodding
of this imperative, imperious necessity, there
is a latent power within us which comes to
our rescue, which answers the call, and we
do the impossible.

It is an unusual thing for singers or actors
and actresses to be obliged to give up their
parts even for a night, but when they are off
duty, or on their vacations, they are much
more likely to be ill or indisposed. There is
a common saying among actors and singers
that they cannot afford to be sick.

" We don't get sick," said an actor, " be-
cause we can't afford that luxury. It is a
case of ' must ' with us ; and although there
have been times when, had I been at home,
or a private man, I could have taken to my
bed with as good a right to be sick as any
one ever had, I have not done so, and have
worn off the attack through sheer necessity.
It is no fiction that will-power is the best of
tonics, and theatrical people understand that

6 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

they must keep a good stock of it always on
hand."

I know of an actor who suffered such tor-
tures with inflammatory rheumatism that even
with the aid of a cane he could not walk
two blocks, from his hotel to the theatre ; yet
when his cue was called, he not only walked
upon the stage with the utmost ease and
grace, but was also entirely oblivious of the
pain which a few moments before had made
him wretched. A stronger motive drove out
the lesser, made him utterly unconscious of
his trouble, and the pain for the time was
gone. It was not merely covered up by some
other thought, passion, or emotion, but it was
temporarily annihilated ; and as soon as the
play was over, and his part finished, he was
crippled again.

General Grant was suffering greatly from
rheumatism at Appomattox, but when a flag
of truce informed him that Lee was ready to
surrender, his great joy not only made him
forget his rheumatism but also drove it com-
pletely away — at least for some time.

The shock occasioned by the great San
Francisco earthquake cured a paralytic who
had been crippled for fifteen years. There
were a great many other wonderful cures

POWER OF THE MIND 7

reported which were almost instantaneous.
Men and women who had been practically in-
valids for a long time, and who were scarcely
able to wait upon themselves, when the crisis
came and they were confronted by this ter-
rible situation, worked like Trojans, carrying
their children and household goods long dis-
tances to places of safety.

We do not know what we can bear until
we are put to the test. Many a delicate
mother, who thought that she could not sur-
vive the death of her children, has lived to
bury her husband and the last one of a large
family, and in addition to all this has seen
her home and last dollar swept away ; yet she
has had the courage to bear it all and to go
on as before. When the need comes, there
is a power deep within us that answers the
call.

Timid girls who have always shuddered at
the mere thought of death have in some fatal
accident entered into the shadow of the valley
without a tremor or murmur. We can face
any kind of inevitable danger with wonderful
fortitude. Frail, delicate women will go on
an operating-table with marvellous courage,
even when they know that the operation is
likely to be fatal. But the same women might

8 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

go all to pieces over the terror of some im-
pending danger, because of the very uncer-
tainty of what might be in store for them.
Uncertainty gives fear a chance to get in its
deadly work on the imagination and make
cowards of us.

A person who shrinks from the prick of
a pin, and who, under ordinary circumstances,
can not endure without an anesthetic the ex-
traction of a tooth or the cutting of flesh,
even in a trivial operation, can, when mangled
in an accident, far from civilization, stand the
amputation of a limb without as much fear
and terror as he might suffer at home from
the lancing of a felon.

I have seen a dozen strong men go to their
deaths in a fire without showing the slightest
sign of fear. There is something within every
one of us that braces us up in a catastrophe
and makes us equal to any emergency. This
something is the God in us. These brave fire-
men did not shrink even when they saw every
means of escape cut off. The last rope
thrown to them had consumed away; the
last ladder had crumbled to ashes, and they
were still in a burning tower one hun-
dred feet above a blazing roof. Yet they
showed no sign of fear or cowardice when

POWER OF THE MIND 9

the tower sank into the seething caldron of
flame.

When in Deadwood, in the Black Hills of
South Dakota, I was told that in the early-
days there, before telephone, railroad, or tele-
graph communication had been established,
the people were obliged to send a hundred
miles for a physician. For this reason the
services of a doctor were beyond the reach
of persons of moderate means. The result
was that people learned to depend upon them-
selves to such an extent that it was only on
extremely rare occasions, usually in a case of
severe accident or some great emergency, that
a physician was sent for. Some of the largest
families of children in the place had been
reared without a physician ever coming into
the house. When I asked some of these
people if they were ever sick they replied,
" No, we are never sick, simply because we are
obliged to keep well. We cannot afford to have
a physician, and even if we could it would
take so long to get him here that the sick one
might be dead before he arrived."

One of the most unfortunate things that
has come to us through what we call " higher
civilization " is the killing of faith in our
power of disease resistance. In our large

10 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

cities people make great preparations for sick-
ness. They expect it, anticipate it, and con-
sequently have it. It is only a block or two
to a physician ; a drug-store is on every other
corner, and the temptation to send for the
physician or to get drugs at the slightest
symptom of illness tends to make them more
and more dependent on outside helps and less
able to control their physical discords.

During the frontier days there were little
villages and hamlets which physicians rarely
entered, and here the people were strong
and healthy and independent. They developed
great powers of disease resistance.

There is no doubt that the doctor habit in
many families has a great deal to do with the
developing of unfortunate physical conditions
in the child. Many mothers are always call-
ing the doctor whenever there is the least sign
of disturbance in the children. The result is
that the child grows up with this disease pic-
ture, doctor picture, medicine picture, in its
mind, and it influences its whole life.

The time will come when a child and any
kind of medicine will be considered a very
incongruous combination. Were children prop-
erly reared in the love thought, in the truth
thought, in the harmony thought, were they

POWER OF THE MIND ii

trained to right thinking, a doctor or medicine
would be rarely needed.

Within the last ten years tens of thousands
of families have never tasted medicine or re-
quired the services of a physician. It is be-
coming more and more certain that the time
will come when the belief in the necessity of
employing some one to patch us up, to mend
the Almighty's work, will be a thing of the
past. The Creator never put man's health, hap-
piness, and welfare at the mercy of the mere
accident of happening to live near physicians.

He never left the grandest of His creations
to the mercy of any chance, cruel fate, or
destiny ; never intended that the life, health,
and well-being of one of His children should
hang upon the contingency of being near a
remedy for his ills; never placed him where
his own life, health, and happiness would
depend upon the chance of happening to be
where a certain plant might grow, or a certain
mineral exist which could cure him.

Is it not more rational to believe that He
would put the remedies for man's ills within
himself — in his own mind, where they are al-
ways available — than that He would store
them in herbs and minerals in remote parts
of the earth where practically but a small por-

12 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

tion of the human race would ever discover
them, countless millions dying in total igno-
rance of their existence?

There is a latent power, a force of in-
destructible life, an immortal principle of
health, in every individual, which if developed
would heal all our wounds and furnish a balm
for the hurts of the world.

How rare a thing it is for people to be ill
upon any great occasion in which they are
to be active participants ! How unusual for a
woman, even though in very delicate health,
to be sick upon a particular day on which she
has been invited to a royal reception or to
visit the White House at Washington !

Chronic invalids have been practically
cured by having great responsibilities thrust
upon them. By the death of some relative
or the loss of property, or through some emer-
gency, they have been forced out of their
seclusion into the public gaze ; forced away
from the very opportunity of thinking of
themselves, dwelling upon their troubles, their
symptoms, and lo! the symptoms have dis-
appeared.

Thousands of women are living to-day in
comparative health who would have been
dead years ago had they not been forced by

POWER OF THE MIND 13

necessity out of their diseased thoughts and
compelled to think of others, to work for
them, to provide and plan for those depen-
dent upon them.

Alultitudes of men and women would be
sick in bed if they could afford it ; but the
hungry mouths to feed, the children to clothe,
these and all the other obligations of life so
press upon them that they cannot stop work-
ing; they must keep going whether they feel
like it or not.

W^hat does the world not owe to that im-
perious " must " — that strenuous effort which
we make when driven to desperation, when all
outside help has been cut off and we are
forced to call upon all that is within us to
extricate ourselves from an unfortunate situ-
ation ?

Many of the greatest things in the world
have been accomplished under the stress of
this impelling " must " — merciless in its lash-
ings and proddings to accomplishment.

Necessity has been a priceless spur which
has helped men to perform miracles against
incredible odds. Every person who amounts
to anything feels within himself a power
which is ever pushing him on and urging him
to perpetual improvement. Whether he feels

14 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

like it or not, this inward monitor holds him
to his task.

It is this little insistent " must " that dogs
our steps ; that drives and bestirs us ; that
makes us willing to suffer privations and en-
dure hardships, inconveniences, and discom-
forts ; to work slavishly, in fact, when inclina-
tion tempts us to take life easy.

II. POVERTY A MENTAL
DISABILITY

II. POVERTY A MENTAL
DISABILITY

The worst thing about poverty is the poverty thought.
It is the conviction that we are poor and must remain so
that is fatal to the gaining of a competence.

Holding the poverty thought keeps us in poverty-
stricken and poverty-producing conditions.

OVERTY is an abnormal
condition. It does not fit
any human being's constitu-
tion. It contradicts the
promise and the prophecy
of the divine in man. The
Creator never intended that
man should be a pauper, a drudge, or a slave.
There is not a single indication in man's
wonderful mechanism that he was created for
a life of poverty. There is something larger
and grander for him in the divine plan than
perpetual slavery to the bread-winning prob-
lem.

No man can do his best work — bring out
the best thing in him — while he feels want
tugging at his heels; while he is hampered,
restricted, forever at the mercy of pinching
circumstances.

The very poor, those struggling to keep

i8 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

the wolf at bay, cannot be independent. They
cannot order their Hves. Often they cannot
afford to express their opinions, or to have
individual views. They cannot always afford
to live in decent locations or in healthful
houses.

Praise it who will, poverty in its extreme
form is narrowing, belittling, contracting,
ambition-killing — an unmitigated curse. There
is little hope in it, little prospect in it, little
joy in it. It often develops the worst in man
and kills love between those who would other-
wise live happily together.

It is difficult for the average human being
to be a real man or real woman in extreme
poverty. When worried, embarrassed, en-
tangled with debts, forced to make a dime
perform the proper work of a dollar, it is
almost impossible to preserve that dignity and
self-respect which enable a man to hold up
his head and look the world squarely in the
face. Some rare and beautiful souls have
done this, and in dire poverty have given us
examples of noble living that the world will
never forget; but on the other hand, how
many has its lash driven to the lowest depths !

Everywhere we see the marks of pinch-
ing, grinding, blighting poverty. The hideous

POVERTY 19

evidences of want stare us in the face every
day. We see it in prematurely old, depressed
faces, and in children who have had no child-
hood and who have borne the mark of the
poverty curse ever since their birth. We see
it shadowing bright young faces, and often
blighting the highest ambition, and dwarfing
the most brilliant ability.

Poverty is more often a curse than a bless-
ing, and those who praise its virtues would
be the last to accept its hard conditions.

I wish I could fill every youth with an utter
dread and horror of it; make him feel its
shame, when preventable, its constraint, its
bitterness, its strangling effect.

There is no disgrace in unpreventable pov-
erty. We respect and honor people who are
poor because of ill-health or misfortune which
they cannot prevent. The disgrace is in not
doing our level best to better our condition.

What we denounce is preventable poverty,
that which is due to vicious living, to sloven-
ly, slipshod, systemless work, to idling and
dawdling, or to laziness; that poverty which
is due to the lack of effort, to wrong thinking,
or to any preventable cause.

Every man should be ashamed of poverty
which he can prevent, not only because it is

20 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

a reflection upon his ability, and will make
others think less of him, but also because it
will make him think less of himself.

The trouble with many of poverty's victims
to-day is that they have no confidence that
they can get away from poverty. They hear
so much about the poor man's lack of op-
portunities ; that the great money combina-
tions will compel nearly everybody in the
future to work for somebody else ; they hear
so much talk of the grasping and the greed
of the rich, that they gradually lose confidence
in their ability to cope with conditions and
become disheartened.

I do not overlook the heartless, grinding,
grasping practices of many of the rich, or the
unfair and cruel conditions brought about by
unscrupulous political and financial schemers ;
but I wish to show the poor man that, not-
withstanding all these things, multitudes of
poor people do rise above their iron environ-
ment, and that there is hope for him. The
mere fact that so many continue to rise, year
after year, out of just such conditions as you
may think are fatal to your advancement,
ought to convince you that you also can con-
quer your environment.

When a man loses confidence, every other

POVERTY 21

success quality gradually leaves him, and life
becomes a grind. He loses ambition and
energy, is not so careful about his personal
appearance, is not so painstaking, does not
use the same system and order in his work,
grows slack and slovenly and slipshod in
every way, and becomes less and less capable
of conquering poverty.

Because they cannot keep up appearances
and live in the same style as their wealthy
neighbors, poor people often become dis-
couraged, and do not try to make the best
of what they have. They do not " put their
best foot forward " and endeavor with all
their might to throw off the evidences of
poverty. If there is anything that paralyzes
power it is the effort to reconcile ourselves
to an unfortunate environment, instead of
regarding it as abnormal and trying to get
away from it.

Poverty itself is not so bad as the poverty
thought. It is the conviction that zue are poor
and must remain so that is fatal. It is the
attitude of mind that is destructive, the facing
toward poverty, and feeling so reconciled to
it that one does not turn about face and
struggle to get away from it with a determina-
tion which knows no retreat.

22 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

It is facing the wrong way, toward the
black, depressing, hopeless outlook that kills
effort and demoralizes ambition. So long as
you carry around a poverty atmosphere and
radiate the poverty thought, you will be
limited.

You will never be anything but a beggar
while you think beggarly thoughts, but a
poor man while you think poverty, a failure
while you think failure thoughts.

If you are afraid of poverty, if you dread
it, if you have a horror of coming to want in
old age, it is more likely to come to you, be-
cause this constant fear saps your courage,
shakes your self-confidence, and makes you
less able to cope with hard conditions.

The magnet must be true to itself, it must
attract things like itself. The only instrument
by which man has ever attracted anything in
this world is his mind, and his mind is like
his thought ; if it is saturated with the fear
thought, the poverty thought, no matter how
hard he works, he will attract poverty.

You walk in the direction in which you
face. If you persist in facing toward poverty,
you cannot expect to reach abundance. When
every step you take is on the road to failure,
you cannot expect to reach the success goal.

POVERTY 23

If we can conquer inward poverty, we can
soon conquer poverty of outward things, for,
when we change the mental attitude, the
physical changes to correspond.

Holding the poverty thought keeps us in
touch with poverty-stricken, poverty-pro-
ducing conditions ; and the constant thinking
of poverty, talking poverty, living poverty,
makes us mentally poor. This is the worst
kind of poverty.

We cannot travel toward prosperity until
the mental attitude faces prosperity. As long
as we look toward despair, we shall never
arrive at the harbor of delight.

The man who persists in holding his mental
attitude toward poverty, or who is always
thinking of his hard luck and failure to get
on, can by no possibility go in the opposite
direction, where the goal of prosperity Hes.

I know a young man who was graduated
from Yale only a few years ago — a broad-
shouldered, vigorous young fellow — who says
that he hasn't the price of a hat, and that if
his father did not send him five dollars a week
he would go hungry.

This young man is the victim of discourage-
ment, of the poverty thought. He says that he
does not believe there is any success for him.

24 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

He has tried many things, and has failed in
them all. He says he has no confidence in his
ability, that his education has been a failure,
and that he has never believed he could
succeed. So he has drifted from, one thing to
another, and is poor and a nobody, just be-
cause of his mental attitude, because he does
not face the right way.

If you would attract good fortune you must
get rid of doubt. As long as that stands be-
tween you and your ambition, it will be a bar
that will cut you off. You must have faith.
No man can make a fortune while he is con-
vinced that he can't. The " I can't " philosophy
has wrecked more careers than almost any-
thing else. Confidence is the magic key that
unlocks the door of supply.

I never knew a man to be successful who
was always talking about business being bad.
The habit of looking down, talking down, is
fatal to advancement.

The Creator has bidden every man to look
up, not down, has made him to climb, not to
grovel. There is no providence which keeps a
man in poverty, or in painful or distressing
circumstances.

A young man of remarkable ability, who
has an established position in the business

POVERTY 25

world, recently told me that for a long time
he had been very poor, and remained so until
he made up his mind that he was not intended
to be poor, that poverty was really a mental
disease of which he intended to rid himself.
He formed a habit of daily affirming" abun-
dance and plenty, of asserting his faith in
himself and in his ability to become a man
of means and importance in the world. He
persistently drove the poverty thought out
of his mind. He would have nothing to do
with it.

He would not allow himself to think of
possible failure. He turned his face toward
the success goal, turned his back forever on
poverty and failure, and he tells me that the
result of his positive attitude and persistent
affirmation has been marvellous.

He says that he used to pinch himself in
every possible way in order to save in little
ways. He would eat the cheapest kind of food,
and as sparingly as possible. He would rarely
go on a street-car, even if he had to walk for
miles. Under the new impulse he completely
changed his habits, resolved that he would go
to good restaurants, that he would get a com-
fortable room in a good location, and that he
would try in every way to meet cultured

26 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

people, and to form acquaintances with those
above him who could help him.

The more liberal he has been, the better he
has been to himself in everything which could
help him along, which would tend to a higher
culture and a better education, the more things
have come his way. He found that it was his
pinched, stingy thoughts that shut off his
supply.

Although he is now living well, he says
that the amount he spends is a mere bagatelle
compared with the larger things that come to
him from his enlarged thought, his changed
attitude of mind.

Stingy, narrow minds do not attract money.
If they get money they usually get it by
parsimonious saving, rather than- by obeying
the law of opulence. It takes a broad, liberal
mind to attract money. The narrow, stingy
mind shuts out the flow of abundance.

It is the hopeful, buoyant, cheerful attitude
of mind that wins. Optimism is a success
builder; pessimism an achievement killer.

Optimism is the great producer. It is hope,
life. It contains everything which enters into
the mental attitude which produces and en-
joys.

Pessimism is the great destroyer. It is de-

POVERTY 27

spair, death. No matter if you have lost your
property, your health, your reputation even,
there is always hope for the man who keeps a
firm faith in himself and looks up.

As long as you radiate doubt and dis-
couragement, you will be a failure. If you
want to get away from poverty, you must
keep your mind in a productive, creative con-
dition. In order to do this you must think
confident, cheerful, creative thoughts. The
model must precede the statue. You must see
a neiv world before you can live in if.

If the people who are down in the world,
who are side-tracked, who believe that their
opportunity has gone by forever, that they
can never get on their feet again, only knew
the power of reversal of their thought, they
could easily get a new start.

I know a family whose members completely
reversed their condition by reversing their
mental attitude. They had been living in a
discouraging atmosphere so long that they
were convinced that success was for others,
but not for them. They believed so thoroughly
that they were fated to be poor that their
home and entire environment were pictures of
dilapidation and failure. Everything was in a
run-down condition. There was almost no

28 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

paint on the house, no carpets on the floors,
and scarcely a picture on the wall — nothing
to make the home comfortable and cheerful.
All the members of the family looked like
failures. The home was gloomy, cold, and
cheerless. Everything about it was depressing.

One day the mother read something that
suggested that poverty was largely a mental
disease, and she began at once to reverse her
thinking habit, and gradually to replace all
discouraging, despondency, failure thoughts
with their opposites. She assumed a sunny,
cheerful attitude, and looked and acted as if
life were worth living.

Soon the husband and children caught the
contagion of her cheerfulness, and in a short
time the whole family was facing the light.
Optimism took the place of pessimism. The
husband completely changed his habits. In-
stead of going- to his work unshaven and
unkempt, with slovenly dress and slipshod
manner, be became neat and tidy. He braced
up, brushed up, cleaned up, and looked up.
The children followed his example. The house
was repaired, renovated within and without,
and the family forever turned their backs on
the dark picture of poverty and failure.

The result of all this was that it brought

POVERTY 29

what many people would call " good luck."
The change in the mental attitude, the out-
look toward success and happiness instead of
failure, reacted upon the father's mind, gave
him new hope and new courage, and so in-
creased his efficiency that he was soon pro-
moted, as were also his sons. After two or
three years of the creative, inspiring atmos-
phere of hope and courage, the entire family
and the home were transformed.

Every man must play the part of his ambi-
tion. If you are trying to be a successful man
you must play the part. If you are trying to
dem.onstrate opulence, you must play it, not
weakly, but vigorously, grandly. You must
feel opulent, you must think opulence, you
must appear opulent. Your bearing must be
filled with confidence. You must give the im-
pression of your own assurance, that you are
large enough to play your part and to play
it superbly. Suppose the greatest actor living
were to have a play written for him in which
the leading part was to represent a man in
the process of making a fortune — a great,
vigorous, progressive character, who con-
quered by his very presence. Suppose this
actor, in i)laying the part, were to dress like
an unprospcrous man, walk on the stage in

30 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

a stooping, slouchy, slipshod manner, as
though he had no ambition, no energy or Hfe,
as though he had no real faith that he could
ever make money or be a success in business ;
suppose he went around the stage with an
apologetic, shrinking, skulking manner, as
much as to say, " Now, I do not believe that
I can ever do this thing that I have attempted ;
it is too big for me. Other people have done
it, but I never thought that I should ever be
rich or prosperous. Somehow good things do
not seem to be meant for me. I am just an
ordinary man, I haven't had much experience
and I haven't much confidence in myself, and
it seems presumptuous for me to think I am
ever going to be rich or have much influence
in the world." What kind of an impression
would he make upon the audience? Would he
give confidence, would he radiate power or
forcefulness, would he make people think that
that kind of a weakling could create a fortune,
could manipulate conditions which would pro-
duce money? Would not everybody say that
the man was a failure ? Would they not laugh
at the idea of his conquering anything?

Suppose a young man should start out with
a determination to get rich, and should all the
time parade his poverty, confess his inability

POVERTY 31

to make money, and tell everybody that he is
" down on his luck " ; that he " always expects
to be poor." Do you think he would become
rich? Talking poverty, thinking poverty, liv-
ing poverty, assuming the air of a pauper,
dressing like a failure, and with a slipshod,
slovenly family and home, how long will it
take a man to arrive at the goal of success ?

Our mental attitude toward the thing we
are struggling for has everything to do with
our gaining it. If a man wants to become
prosperous, he must believe that he was made
for success and happiness ; that there is a
divinity in him which will, if he follows it,
bring him into the light of prosperity.

Erase all the shadows, all the doubts and
fears, and the suggestions of poverty and
failure from your mind. When you have be-
come master of your thought, when you have
once learned to dominate your mind, you will
find that things will begin to come your way.
Discouragement, fear, doubt, lack of self-
confidence, are the germs which have killed
the prosperity and happiness of tens of thou-
sands of people.

If it were possible for all the poor to turn
their backs on their dark and discouraging
environment and face the light and cheer, and

32 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

if they should resolve that they are done with
poverty and a slipshod existence, this very
resolution would, in a short time, revolutionize
civilization.

Every child should be taught to expect
prosperity, to believe that the good things of
the world were intended for him. This con-
viction would be a powerful factor in the
adult life if the child were so trained.

Wealth is created mentally first; it is
thought out before it becomes a reality.

When a youth decides to become a physi-
cian, he puts himself in a medical atmosphere
just as much as possible. He talks medicine,
reads medicine, studies medicine, thinks medi-
cine until he becomes saturated with it. He
does not decide to become a physician and
then put himself in a legal atmosphere, read
law, talk law, think law. So, if you want
success, abundance, you must think success,
you must think abundance.

Stoutly deny the power of adversity or
poverty to keep you down. Constantly assert
your superiority to your environment. Believe
that you are to dominate your surroundings,
that you are the master and not the slave of
circumstances.

Resolve with all the vigor you can muster

POVERTY 33

that, since there are plenty of good things in
the world for everybody, you are going to
have your share, without injuring anybody
else or keeping others back. It was intended
that you should have a competence, an abun-
dance. It is your birthright. You are success
organized, and constructed for happiness, and
you should resolve to reach your divine
destiny.

When you make up your mind that you
are done with poverty forever ; that you will
have nothing more to do with it ; that you
are going to erase every trace of it from your
dress, your personal appearance, your manner,
your talk, your actions, your home ; that you
are going to show the world your real mettle ;
that you are no longer going to pass for a
failure ; that you have set your face persist-
ently toward better things — a competence, an
independence — and that nothing on earth can
turn you from your resolution, you will be
amazed to find what a reenforcing power will
come to you, what an increase of confidence,
reassurance, and self-respect.

The very act of turning your back upon the
black picture and resolving that you will have
nothing more to do with failure, with poverty ;
that you will make the best possible out of

34 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

what you do have; that you will put up the
best possible appearance ; that you will clean
up, brush up, talk up, look up, instead of
down — hold your head up and look the world
in the face instead of cringing, whining, com-
plaining— will create a new spirit within you
which will lead you to the light. Hope will
take the place of despair, and you will feel the
thrill of a new power, of a new force coursing
through your veins.

Thousands of people in this country have
thought themselves away from a life of
poverty by getting a glimpse of that great
principle, that we tend to realize in the life
zvhat we persistently hold in the thought and
vigorously struggle toward.

III. THE LAW OF OPULENCE

III. THE LAW OF OPULENCE

'Tis the mind that makes the body rich. — Shakespeare.

One of the most \icious ideas that ever found entrance
into human brain is that there is not enough of every-
thing for everybody, and that most people on the earth
must be poor in order that a few may be rich.

E talk abundance here." I
was struck with this motto in
a New York office recently.
I said to myself : " These
people are prosperous be-
cause they expect prosperity ;
they do not recognize poverty
or admit lacking anything they need."

The way to make the ideal the real, is to
persistently hold the thought of their identity.
The way to demonstrate abundance is to hold
it constantly in the mind, to frequently say
to yourself, " All that my Father hath is
mine." " The Lord is my shepherd : I shall
not want." If all this is true (and you know
that it is), any want or lack in your life is
abnormal.

The great fundamental principle of the law
of opulence is our inseparable connection with
the creative energy of the universe. When we

37

38 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

come into full realization of this connection
we shall never want again. It is our sense of
separateness from the Power that created us
that makes us feel helpless.

But as long as we limit ourselves by think-
ing that we are separate, insignificant, un-
related atoms in the universe ; that the great
supply, the creative energy is outside of us,
and that only a little of it can in some mys-
terious way be absorbed by a few people who
are " fortunate," " lucky," we shall never
come into that abundant supply which is our
birthright.

And where did the false idea of the absorp-
tion of all the good things by the few, of the
necessity of competition, originate? It had its
origin in the pessimistic assumption that it is
impossible for everybody to be wealthy or
successful ; in the thought of limitation of all
the things which men most desire ; and that,
there not being enough for all, a few must
fight desperately, selfishly for zuhat there is,
and the shrewdest, the longest-headed, those
with the most staying power, the strongest
workers, will get the most of it. This theory
is fatal to all individual and race betterment.

The Creator never put vast multitudes
of people on this earth to scramble for a

THE LAW OF OPULENCE 39

limited supply, as though He were not able to
furnish enough for all. There is nothing in
this world which men desire and struggle for,
and that is good for them, of which there is
not enough for everybody.

Take the thing we need most — food. We
have not begun to scratch the possibilities of
the food supply in America.

The State of Texas could supply food,
home, and luxuries to every man, woman, and
child on this continent. As for clothing, there
is material enough in the country to clothe
all its inhabitants in purple and fine linen.
We have not begun yet to touch the possibili-
ties of our clothing and dress supply. The
same is true of all other necessities and
luxuries. We are still on the outer surface of
abundance, a surface covering kingly supplies
for every individual on the globe.

When the whale ships in New Bedford
Harbor and other ports were rotting in idle-
ness, because the whale was becoming extinct,
Americans became alarmed lest we should
dwell in darkness ; but the oil wells came to
our rescue with abundant supply. And then,
when we began to doubt tiiat this source
would last, Science gave us the electric light.

Like Newton, the greatest scientists of the

40 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

world still feel that they are playing with
grains of sand on the shore of our illimitable
supply in every line of human need. The
possibilities of finding heat, power, and light
in chemical forces should the coal supply fail
are simply boundless.

The same thing is true of food. The most
advanced agriculturist feels that he is but an
amateur when it comes to the possibilities of
mixing brains with the soil. Education and
knowledge are enabling us to produce more
from a few acres of soil than men formerly
produced from hundreds of acres. Agriculture
is still in its infancy. We know almost nothing
as yet about the possibilities of getting nitro-
gen from the atmosphere, and of renewing the
soil. No matter which way we turn, Science
matches our knowledge with her marvellous
reserves and nowhere is there a sign of limit.

There is building material enough to give
every person on the globe a mansion finer
than any that a Vanderbilt or Rothschild
possesses. It was intended that we should all
be rich and happy; that we should have an
abundance of all the good things the heart
can crave. We should live in the realization
that there is an abundance of power where
our present power comes from, and that we

THE LAW OF OPULENCE 41

can draw upon this great source for as much
as we can use.

There is something wrong when the chil-
dren of the King of kings go about like sheep
hounded by a pack of wolves. There is some-
thing wrong when those who have inherited
infinite supply are worrying about their daily
bread ; are dogged by fear and anxiety so that
they cannot take any peace ; that their lives
are one battle with want ; that they are always
under the harrow of worry, always anxious.
There is something wrong when people are
so worried and absorbed in making a living
that they cannot make a life.

We were made for happiness, to express joy
and gladness, to be prosperous. The trouble
with us is that we do not trust the law of in-
finite supply, but close our natures so that
abundance cannot flow to us. In other words,
we do not obey the law of attraction. We
keep our minds so pinched and our faith in
ourselves so small, so narrow, that we strangle
the inflow of supply. Abundance follows a law
as strict as that of mathematics. If we obey
it, we get the flow ; if we strangle it, we cut it
oflF. The trouble is not in the supply ; there is
abundance awaiting everyone on the globe.

The majority of us still believe in the idea

42 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

of competition. We regard it as a necessary
principle of business, as is indicated by such
maxims as " Competition is the Hfe of trade."

If we could only realize and feel our close,
intimate connection with the Power of in-
finite supply, we could not want.

It is the feeling of separateness from the
great Power that makes us fear, just as the
child's separation from its mother fills it with
fear and terror.

When we shall learn the cause of this feel-
ing of separateness, that it is wrong thinking,
sin, which isolates us, we shall know how to
get in touch again with the great supplying
Principle of the universe.

When we feel a sense of unity, an at-oneness
with the Creator, we cannot fear, we cannot
want, because we are in the very midst of the
supply, in the very lap of abundance.

It is impossible for God's image and like-
ness in man to reflect failure or poverty.
Man's divine image reflects prosperity, riches
that are royal, divine abundance that never
fails, plenty that can never grow less.

Many lives are like the great Sahara Desert,
only here and there a little clump of green
trees and flowers where there happens to be
a little moisture; a tiny oasis here and there.

THE LAW OF OPULENCE 43

watered by a little encouragement — some good
fortune that has come even in spite of the fact
that the mental attitude has been totally un-
favorable to the production of prosperity.

A large, generous success is impossible to
many people, because every avenue to their
minds is closed by doubt, worry, fear. They
have shut out the possibility of prosperity.
Abundance cannot come to a mind that is
pinched, shrivelled, skeptical, and pessimistic.

Prosperity is a product of the creative mind.
The mind that fears, doubts, depreciates its
powers, is a negative, non-creative mind, one
that repels prosperity, repels supply. It has
nothing in common with abundance, hence
cannot attract it.

Of course, men do not mean to drive op-
portunity, prosperity, or abundance away
from them ; but they hold a mental attitude
filled with doubts and fears and lack of faith
and self-confidence, which virtually does this
very thing without their knowing it.

Oh, what paupers our doubts and fears
make of us!

No mind, no intellect is powerful or great
enough to attract wealth while the mental
attitude is turned away from it — facing in
the other direction.

44 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

Our pinched, dwarfed, blighted lives come
from inability to unite with the great Source of
all supply. All our limitations are in our own
minds, the supply is there waiting in vast
abundance. We take little because we demand
little, because we are afraid to take the much
of our inheritance — the abundance that is our
birthright. We starve ourselves in the midst
of plenty, because of our strangling thought.
The opulent life stands ready to take us into
its completeness, but our ignorance cuts us
off. Hence the life abundant, the river of
plenty, opulence unspeakable, flow past our
doors and we starve on the very shores of the
stream which carries infinite supply.

It is not in our nature that we are paupers,
but in our own mean, stingy appreciation of
ourselves and our powers. The idea that
riches are possible only to those who have
superior advantages, more ability; those who
have been favored by fate, is false and vicious.

People who put themselves into harmony
with the law of opulence harvest a fortune,
while those who do not in many cases do not
find enough to keep them alive.

There is everything in feeling opulent. I
know a lady who has such a wonderful ap-
preciation of everything about her, who has

THE LAW OF OPULENCE 45

such superb ideas of life and the grandeur
of its meaning, that it makes one feel rich to
converse with her. With her there is no such
thing as commonness. The most ordinary duties
when performed by her are lifted into dignity
and grandeur. Things come to her without
worrying or anxious thought. She loves every-
body and everybody loves her. She has no
grudges against anybody, because her very
nature is sunshine. There is no lack in her
life, because she believes in and relies without
doubt or shadow of fear on the Infinite
Source of supply. She is rich, opulent in the
truest sense of the word. Such people make
others feel rich.

On the other hand, we all know those who,
no matter how much money they may have,
never suggest opulence, never suggest any-
thing rich or grand, because their natures are
starved, shrivelled, and stunted. Greed and
selfishness have sapped all the juices out of
their lives and made them as barren of sweet-
ness as sucked oranges.

We must think plenty before we can realize
it in the life. If we hold the poverty thought,
the penury thought, the thought of lack, we
cannot demonstrate abundance. We must hold
the plenty thought if we would reach plenty.

46 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

When we realize the fact that we do not
need to look outside of ourselves for what we
need ; that the source of all supply, the divine
spring which can quench our thirst, is within
ourselves, then we shall not want, for we
know that we only have to dip deep into
ourselves to touch the infinite supply. The
trouble with us is that we do not abide in
abundance, do not live with the creative, the
all-supplying sources of things.

It is said of a remarkably successful man
of our times that he is unable to see poverty.
His mind is so constructed that he seems to
see abundance everywhere, and believes so
implicitly in the law of opulence that he
demonstrates it easily. He has no doubts to
paralyze his endeavor.

In the main we get out of life what we
have concentrated upon. What we do, our
environment, our position, our condition, are
the results of our concentration, our life-
focusing. If we have concentrated upon
poverty, and we have thus pinched our inflow
of prosperity, if our thoughts have, been of
our unworthiness and the conviction that the
best things in the world were not intended
for us, of course we shall get what we have
concentrated upon. If, on the other hand, we

THE LAW OF OPULENCE 47

have centred our thoughts along the hnes of
prosperity, of abundance, if we have beUeved
that the best things in the world are for us,
because we are the children of God, and that
health, happiness, and prosperity are our birth-
right, and have done our best to realize our
ideals, then our surroundings, our condition
will outpicture our thought, our concentra-
tion, our mental attitude.

I have known people who have longed all"
their lives to be happy, and yet they have
concentrated their minds on their loneliness,
their friendlessness, their misfortunes. They
are always pitying themselves for the lack of
the good things of the world. The whole trend
of their habitual concentration has been upon
things which could not possibly produce what
they longed for. They have been longing for
one thing, and expecting and working for
something else.

It is a great thing to learn to live in the
All-Life, to keep close to infinite supply.
Many of us imprison ourselves in the narrow
limited poverty thought, and then, like caged
eagles trying in vain to get free, we beat out our
wings against the bars we have ourselves put up.

Some natures are naturally filled with sug-
gestions of plenty of all that is rich, grand,

48 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

and noble. Some minds are so constituted that
they instinctively plunge right into the mar-
row of creative energy. Producing is as natu-
ral to them as breathing. These people are not
hampered by doubts, fears, timidity, or lack of
faith in themselves. They are confident, bold,
fearless characters. They never doubt that the
infinite supply will be equal to their demand
upon it. Such an opulent, positive mental at-
titude is creative energy.

When we have faith enough in the law of
opulence to spend our last dollar with the
same confidence and assurance that we would
if we had thousands more, we have touched
the law of divine supply.

" Charity giveth itself rich. Covetousness
hoardeth itself poor."

A stream of plenty will not flow toward
the stingy, parsimonious, doubting thought ;
there must be a corresponding current of
generosity, open-mindedness, going out from
us. One current creates the other. A little
rivulet of stingy-mindedness, a weak, poverty
current going out from ourselves, can never
set up a counter-current toward us of abun-
dance, generosity, and plenty. In other words,
our mental attitude determines the counter-
current which comes to us.

THE LAW OF OPULENCE 49

Train yourself to come away from the
thought of Hmitation, away from the thought
of lack, of want, of pinched supply. This
thinking abundance, and defying limitation
will open up the mind and set thought cur-
rents toward a greatly increased supply.

When man comes into the full realization
that God is his never-failing Supply, the
Source of Abundance, the great Fountain
Head of all that is good and desirable, and
that he being His offspring, must be a part,
an indestructible part of this supply, he will
never more know poverty or lack of any kind.

The sons and daughters of God were
planned for glorious, sublime lives, and the
time will come when all men will be kings and
all women queens. When mans higher brain
shall have triumphed over his lozver brain and
the brute shall have been educated out of
him, there will be no poverty, slavery, or vice.
The time will come when the most miserable
creature that walks on the globe to-day will
be higher than the highest now on the earth.
The plan of creation will have failed if every
human being does not finally come into his
own and return to his God as a king.

IV. CHARACTER BUILDING AND
HEALTH BUILDING DURING SLEEP

IV. CHARACTER BUILDING AND
HEALTH BUILDING DURING SLEEP

However discordant or troubled you have been dur-
ing the day, do not go to sleep until you have restored
your mental balance, until your faculties are poised
and your mind serene.

HYSIOLOGISTS tell us that
the mental processes which
are active on retiring, con-
tinue far into the night.
These mental impressions on
retiring, just before going
to sleep, the thoughts that
dominate the mind, continue to exercise in-
fluence long after we become unconscious.

We are told, too, that wrinkles and other
evidences of age are formed as readily during
sleep as when awake, indicating that the way
the mind is set when falling asleep has a
powerful influence on the body.

]\Iany people cut off the best years of their
lives by the continuation in their sleep of the
wearing, tearing, rasping influences that have
been operating upon them during the day.

Thousands of business and professional
men and women are so active during the da}',
live such strenuous, unnatural lives, that they

53

54 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

cannot stop thinking after they retire, and
sleep is driven away, or only induced after
complete mental exhaustion. These people are
so absorbed in the problems of their business
or vocations that they do not know how to re-
lax, to rest ; so they lie down to sleep with all
their cares, just as a tired camel lies down in
the desert with its great burden still on its
back.

The result is that, instead of being benefited
by refreshing, rejuvenating sleep, they get up
in the morning weary, much older than when
they retired ; when they ought to get up full
of vigor, w'ith a great surplus of energy and
bounding vitality ; strong and ambitious for
the day's work before them.

The corroding, exhausting, discord-produc-
ing operations which are going on when they
fall asleep and which continue into the night,
counteract the good they would otherwise get
from their limited amount of sleep. All this
shows the importance of preparing the mind
to exercise a healthful, uplifting influence dur-
ing sleep.

It is more important to prepare the mind
for sleep than the body. The mental bath is
even more necessary than the physical one.

The first thing to do is to get rid of the

CHARACTER BUILDING 55

rasping, worrying, racking influences which
have been operating upon us during the day
— to clean the mental house — to tear down all
the dingy, discouraging, discordant pictures
that have disfigured it, and hang up bright,
cheerful, encouraging ones for the night.

Never allow yourself, under any circum-
stances, to retire in a discouraged, despondent,
gloomy mood, or in a fit of temper. Never lie
down with a frown on your brow ; with a
perplexed, troubled expression on your face.
Smooth out the wrinkles ; drive away grudges,
jealousies, all the enemies of your peace of
mind. Let nothing tempt you to go to sleep
with an unkind, critical, jealous thought to-
ward another in your mind.

It is bad enough to feel unkindly toward
others when under severe provocation, or
when in a hot temper, but you cannot afiford
to deliberately continue this state of mind
after the provocation has ceased and spoil
your sleep. You cannot afiford the wear and
tear. It takes too much out of you. Life is too
short, time too precious to spend any part of
it in unprofitable, health-wrecking, soul-rack-
ing thoughts. Be at peace with all the world at
least once in every twenty-four hours. You
cannot afiford to allow the enemies of your

56 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

happiness to etch their miserable images
deeper and deeper into your character as you
sleep. Erase them all. Start every night with
a clean slate.

If you have been impulsive, foolish, wicked
during the day in your treatment of others ; if
you have been holding a revengeful, ugly,
or jealous attitude toward others, wipe off
your mental slate now and start anew. Obey
the injunction of St. Paul, " Let not the sun
go down upon your wrath."

If you have difficulty in banishing un-
pleasant or torturing thoughts, force yourself
to read some good, inspiring book ; some-
thing that will take out vour wrinkles and
put you in a happy mood, and will reveal to
you the real grandeur and beauty of life;
that will make you feel ashamed of your
petty meannesses and narrow, uncharitable
thoughts.

Saturate your mind with pleasant memories
and with dreams of great expectations. Just
imagine yourself the man or woman you long
to become, filled with happiness, prosperity,
and power. Hold tenaciously the ideal of the
character you most admire, the personality to
which you aspire — the broad, magnanimous,
large-hearted, deep-minded, lovable soul which

CHARACTER BUILDING 57

you wish it were possible for you to become.
The habit of such beautiful life-picturing and
the power of reverie on retiring will very
quickly begin to reproduce itself, outpicture
itself in your life.

After a little practice, you will be surprised
to see how quickly and completely you can
change your whole mental attitude, so that
you will face life the right way before you
fall asleep.

A prominent business man told me recently
that his great weakness was his inability to
stop thinking after retiring. This man, who
is very active during the day and works at a
high tension, has a sensitive nervous organiza-
tion, and his brain keeps on working both
before and after he falls asleep as intensely
as it did during the day. In this way he is
robbed of so much sleep and what he gets is
so troubled and unrefreshing, that he feels
all used up the next day.

I advised him to cultivate the habit of clos-
ing the door of his business brain at the same
time that he closed the door of his business
office, " You should," I said, " insist on chang-
ing the current of your thoughts when you
leave your business for the day, just as you
change your environment, or as you change

58 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

your dress for dinner when you go home in
the evening. Turn your thoughts to your wife
and children, to their joys and interests ;
talk to them, play games with them; read
some humorous or entertaining story, or some
strong, interesting book that will lift you, in
spite of yourself, out of your business rut. Go
out for a long walk or a ride ; fill your lungs
with strong, sweet, fresh air ; look about you
and observe the beauties of nature. Or have
a hobby of some kind to which you can turn
for recreation and refreshment when you quit
your regular business. Be master of your
mind. Learn to control it, instead of allowing
it to control you and tyrannize over you.

" Hang up in your bedchamber, in a con-
spicuous place where you can always see it,
a card bearing in bold illuminated letters this
motto : ' No Thinking Here.'

" Shut off all thinking processes of every
kind when you retire for the night, relax
every muscle ; let there be no tension of mind
or body, and in a short time you will find that
sleep will come to you as easily and naturally
as to a little child, and that it will be as un-
troubled, as sweet and refreshing as that of
a child."

To all who are troubled as this man was.

CHARACTER BUILDING 59

I would offer the same advice, for its adoption
has proved very successful in his case.

It is a great art to be able to shut the
gates of the mental power-house on retiring,
to control oneself, to put oneself in tune with
the Infinite, in sympathy with those about him,
and in harmony with the world; to expel
from the mind everything which jars or ir-
ritates— all malice, envy, and jealousy, the
enemies of our peace and happiness — before
we go to sleep. Yet it is an art that all can
acquire.

It is possible for everyone, either by think-
ing, reading, or pleasant social influences, to
conquer all discordant moods, to overcome
every unkind feeling, to banish every frown
from the face, every wrinkle from the mind,
and to go to sleep with a smile on the face.

When you go to sleep in the right mental
attitude you will be surprised to find how
serene and calm, how refreshed and cheerful,
you will be when you awake in the morn-
ing, and how much easier it will be to start
right and to wear a smile for the day than
it was when you went to bed worrying, ill-
humored, or full of ungenerous, uncharitable
thoughts.

The devotional attitude on retiring to sleep

6o PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

is of very great value, inasmuch as it tends
to soothe, cahn, and reassure the mind, to
destroy all fear, worry and anxious thoughts
and to put one in tune with higher, nobler
thoughts.

Persistency in preparing the mind for
peaceful, healthful, happy sleep will prolong
your life and your youth. More important still,
it will have a far-reaching influence on your
health and the foundation of your character.
The habit of clearing the mental temple of
all discords, error, hatred, revenge, every-
thing which tends to gloom and darkness be-
fore going to sleep, and persisting in holding
bright pictures in the mind, in dwelling on
noble and uplifting thoughts, will in time
revolutionize the whole life.

We are just beginning to realize that there
is an enormous power lying dormant in the
Great Within of us, and that this latent force
or power seems to be very susceptible to
stimulus during sleep, when the objective
world and its many disturbing conditions are
absent.

We little realize the amount of activity —
undirected activity — that goes on in our sub-
conscious minds during sleep.

There is a lot of unconscious philosophy in

CHARACTER BUILDING 6i

the expression one so often utters, " I would
like to sleep over this proposition," problem —
or whatever it is. Without knowing the secret
of it, we realize that things somehow clear up
during sleep in a remarkable way. We see
things in a different light in the morning.
Perhaps the thing we were most enthusiastic
over the night before, and which, had we
carried out, would have been obviously in-
jurious, often seems silly, ill-advised, im-
possible to us in the morning, not because we
really consciously thought much about it, but
because there is something in our subcon-
scious mentality M'hich often solves knotty
problems for us while asleep — problems which
staggered us in our waking hours.

Great mathematicians, scientists, and as-
tronomers have many times been surprised to
find very difficult problems that their reason
could not elucidate during the day solved
without apparent effort during sleep.

There is no doubt that much of our moral
education and character-forming is carried on
during sleep subconsciously, and since the
psychology of this education and character-
forming during sleep is based on the fact that
the processes which are going on in the brain
when we fall asleep tend to continue during

62 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

the night, we can readily see what marvellous
possibilities lie in the right direction and
guidance of this mysterious subconscious
power.

I know persons who have performed won-
ders in reforming themselves by self-sugges-
tion on retiring at night, holding the happy,
inspiring, helpful suggestion in the mind up
to the point of unconsciousness. Persons have
overcome ugly tempers and dispositions in
this way as well as other unfortunate traits.
The holding of the vigorous, robust, healthy
ideal — the ideal and the spirit of youth — has
immense possibilities in the way of self-re-
freshment, reinvigoration, and rejuvenation,
and is especially helpful to those who are ad-
vanced in years.

If those who are inclined to melancholy and
the " blues " would, just before going to sleep,
insist on the nothingness of these delusions,
and substitute the bright, cheerful, hopeful,
optimistic thought, they would very soon over-
come this unfortunate tendency.

If poverty is grinding us under its heel, we
should affirm before going to sleep that the
Creator has provided sufficient to give every-
one the necessaries and comforts of life, with-
out any worry about them on our part. Instead

CHARACTER BUILDING 63

of thinking of poverty we should hold in the
mind the suggestion of opulence, of pros-
perity. We thus make the action of the sub-
conscious mind attract to us what we need
and desire.

If we have any defect or weakness, we
should hold firmly and persistently in mind,
before we go to sleep, just the opposite char-
acteristic or quality ; this will tend to attract
to us the thing we long for. If we desire to
overcome any vice, we should plead the whole-
ness, the completeness which we long to attain.

Bad tem.per, inebriety, selfishness and deceit-
fulness, all sorts of vicious and immoral ten-
dencies, have been eradicated in this manner.

Children seem especially susceptible to sug-
gestion, or what, for a better name, may be
called the " going-to-sleep " treatment. This is
because the subconscious mind is particularly
active in the young and much more easily
reached, especially during the first stages of
sleep, when just dropping into unconscious-
ness.

Truths emphasized at this time will be
remembered more readily by the child and are
more likely to be acted upon during the wak-
ing hours than those which are emphasized
while he is awake, for when he is in the sub-

64 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

conscious state he does not antagonize ad-
vice.

Some very remarkable results in the cor-
rection of vicious tendencies in children have
recently been accomplished by appealing to
their divine natures — their better selves —
through mental suggestion during sleep.

The effective treatment of sickness in in-
fants and children through the medium of
such suggestioij shows how easily the subcon-
sciousness can be influenced when the child
is in the unconscious, or semiconscious state.

If a child is naturally timid, and afraid of
" ghosts," the darkness, or any other thing,
the mother can often help it to overcome these
fears by talking to it while it is dropping to
sleep. If it is weak, delicate or ill, she can
suggest the healing Christ-truth, the health-
ideal, strength, vigor, harmony. If it is timid,
she can suggest confidence and courage.

The suggestion of success to the child who
has been backward in school, or who has
failed in his studies, will often have a wonder-
ful effect in the way of establishing confidence
and hope.

If the mother talks to her child and reasons
with it as it drops off into sleep, just as she
would if the child were awake, she will find

CHARACTER BUILDING 65

that her words will have far more effect than
if he were conscious, for the stubbornness, the
natural inclination to resist, to do that which
is forbidden, which is present in the child's
mind during its waking hours, is quiescent,
and it listens to and heeds its mother's advice
quietly, naturally, unquestioningly. The wise
mother who makes all sorts of good sugges-
tions to her children in her talks — substituting
the good for the bad, love for hatred and jeal-
ousy, unselfishness for selfishness — soon finds
a marked change in their dispositions. By in-
jecting into the little Hfe confidence, hope,
love, joy, courage, self-reliance, purity — all
the higher and nobler attributes — she can
wonderfully change her child's disposition.

The time will come when all mothers will
understand the importance of suggestion in
influencing a child's conduct and shaping its
character.

A few already recognize the power of
mental suggestion in all its forms, but in the
new age that is coming, none will be ignorant
of its wonderful character-forming and life-
transforming possibilities.

If those who have not tried it before begin
now, I am sure that in a very short time they
will be surprised at the beneficent results that

66 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

will follow this persistent practice of flooding
the mind with pure and noble thoughts before
going to sleep — close up to the very point of
unconsciousness.

I am sure those who try it will find delight
and satisfaction in the habit not only of clear-
ing the mind before going to sleep of all
worry and anxiety, all grudges and jealousies
— of everything that clouds the intellect — but
also in stoutly and persistently claiming the
things which they long for as already theirs.

Be sure that when you fall asleep there is
only that in your consciousness which will
help you to be more of a man — more of a
woman. Determine that your mind, when you
lose conscious thought, shall have in it no
black images and no dark spots, but only
beautiful images and thoughts of hope and
good will toward every living creature ; that
there shall be no failure thought, no poverty
thought, no ugly, discordant thought, but that
everything shall be bright, cheerful, hopeful,
helpful and optimistic.

V. HEALTH THROUGH RIGHT
THINKING

V. HEALTH
THINKING

THROUGH RIGHT

There is a nobleness of mind that heals
Wounds beyond salves.

— Cartwright.

"God never made his work for man to mend."

ROFESSOR WILLIAM
JAMES, of Harvard Univer-
sity, says " we are just now
witnessing a very copious un-
locking of new ideas through
the converts to metaphysical
healing, or other forms of
spiritual philosophy. The ideas are healthy-
minded and optimistic. The power, small or
great, comes in various shapes to the individ-
ual ; power not to ' mind ' things that used to
vex one ; power to concentrate one's mind ;
good cheer ; good temper ; a firmer and more
elastic tone. The most saintly person I have
ever known is a friend now suffering from can-
cer of the breast. I do not assume to judge of
the wisdom or unwisdom of her disobedience
to the doctors, but cite her case here solely as
an example of what an idea can do. Her ideas
have kept her practically a well woman for

69

70 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

months after she would otherwise have given
up and gone to bed. They have annulled pain
and weakness and given her a cheerful, active
life ; a life unusually beneficent to those
around her."

Few people realize how largely their health
depends upon the saneness of their thinking.
You cannot hold ill-health thoughts, disease
thoughts, in the mind without having them
outpictured in the body. The thought will ap-
pear in the body somewhere, and its quality
will determine the results — sound or unsound,
healthful or unhealthful. As it is impossible
for a person to remain absolutely pure who
habitually holds pictures of impurity in the
imagination, so it is just as impossible to be
healthy while holding the disease thought.
There cannot be harmony in the body with
disease in the mind.

The health stream, if polluted at all, is
polluted at the fountain-head — in the thought,
in the ideal.

The different organs seem to be especially
susceptible to certain kinds of mental in-
fluence. Excessive selfishness, covetousness,
envy, especially affect the liver and the spleen. \
Hatred and anger have a very aggravating
influence upon some diseases of the Hdneys.

HEALTH 71

Jealousy seriously affects both the liver and
the heart.

If there is fear, worry, anxiety in the mind,
the heart's action indicates it quickly. There
is no doubt that where mental discord, such
as worry, anxiety and jealousy, have become
chronic, the heart suffers accordingly. Thou-
sands of people have died from heart troubles
which have been induced by mental discord.

Dr. Snow in the London Lancet asserts his
conviction that the vast majority of cases of
cancer, especially of breast and uterine cancer,
are due to mental anxiety and worry. Jaun-
dice from anxiety is reported by Dr. Churton
in the British Medical Journal.

The liver is affected very materially by dis-
cordant thought. Jaundice often follows great
mental shocks, especially frequent great and
prolonged outbursts of temper.

It is well known that many people are made
bilious by long-continued despondency and
worry.

Dr. Murchison, an eminent authority, says :
" I have been surprised how often patients
with primary cancer of the liver have traced
the cause of this ill-health to protracted grief or
anxiety. The cases have been far too numer-
ous to be accounted for as mere coincidences."

72 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

The functions of the skin are seriously
affected by the emotions.

Sir B. W. Richardson, in his work " The
Field of Disease," says :

" Eruptions on the skin will follow ex-
cessive mental strain. In all these, and in
cancer, epilepsy, and mania from mental
causes, there is a predisposition. It is remark-
able," he adds, " how little the question of the
origin of physical disease from mental in-
fluences has been studied."

We can never gain health by contemplating
disease, any more than we can reach perfection
by dwelling upon imperfection, or harmony
by dwelling upon discord.

We should keep a high ideal of health and
harmony constantly before the mind ; and we
should fight every discordant thought and
every enemy of harmony as we would fight
a temptation to crime. Never aiHrm or repeat
about your health what you do not zvish to
\e true. Do not dwell upon your ailments nor
-Vudy your symptoms. Physicians tell us that
perfect health is impossible to the self-dis-
sector, who is constantly thinking of himself,
studying himself, and forever on the alert for
the least symptom of disease.

Librarians report that there is an astonish-

HEALTH 73

ing demand among readers for medical books.
Many who imagine they have some particular
disease often develop a morbid curiosity or
desire to read everything they can get hold
of that bears upon the subject. When they
find, as they do frequently, that some of the
symptoms of the disease they are reading
about coincides with their own, the conviction
is still more deeply fastened in thtlr minds
that they have this disease. The strength of
this conviction is often their greatest hindrance
to a cure.

Nervous people with vivid imaginations
rarely see life in a perfectly sane and health-
ful way ; they are very apt to become morbid
and to make mountains out of molehills. Every
little ache or pain is exaggerated and inter-
preted as a symptom of something worse t<^
come.

These people are powerfully affected by
hereditary convictions. If they have an unfor-
tunate family history ; if their ancestors died
of consumption, cancer, or any other of the
dread diseases, the conviction that they are
likely to develop one or the other of these
fatal maladies hangs like a pall over their
lives, seriously impairs their health, and para-
lyzes their efficiency.

74 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

What a terrible thing- to go through life
with such a nightmare staring one in the face !
How foolish, and destructive of all power, to
live with the spectre of death constantly by
one's side; to drag through years with the
settled conviction that you are not going to
live long ; that there are terrible disease seeds
within you which are liable to develop at any
time and carry you off!

Think of a person spending years in getting
a college and professional education, and more
years still in training for a specialty, while all
the time haunted by the possibility that he
may be thwarted by the development of some
terrible hereditary disease which may prema-
turely cut off his life ! It would be enough to
kill the ambition of a Napoleon.

I know people in delicate health who habitu-
ally hold in their minds sick and discordant
thoughts. They are always thinking and talk-
ing of their ailments. They gloat over their
symptoms, watch them, study them, look for
them, until they have what they expect — for
like produces like ; it cannot produce anything
else. A reversal of the thought — thinking of
health instead of disease, and holding in mind
the health picture instead of the disease pic-
ture— would cure many an invalid without

HEALTH 75

medicine. Healthy thought is the greatest
panacea in the world.

Many people not only cripple their effi-
ciency, but keep themselves sick, or in a con-
dition of semi-invalidism or diminished power,
by holding constantly in their minds negative
suggestions as indicated by such expressions
as : " Oh, I do not feel well to-day " ; " I feel
miserable " ; " I am weak " ; " I am half sick " ;
" My food does not agree with me " ; "I did
not sleep well last night, and I know I shall
not be good for much to-day."

If you are constantly saying to yourself, " I
am wretched, weak and sick," " I am running
down all the time," how can you expect to be-
come strong and well ? '* According to thy
word be it unto thee."

Health and vigor will never come to you if
you perpetually harp upon your weakness and
pity yourself because of your poor health.
Health is integrity. Health is wholeness, com-
pleteness, n you talk anything else, you will
get it, for " According to thy word be it unto
thee."

Imagine yourself an attorney pleading the
cause of your health. Summon up every bit of
evidence you can possibly find. Do not give
away your case to your opponent. Plead it

76 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

vigorously with all the strength you can com-
mand.

You will be surprised to see how your body
will respond to such mental pleading; such
robust, vigorous, healthy affirmative argument.

I know of a case where a physician in pass-
ing through a ward thoughtlessly said to the
nurse, in a voice loud enough for the patient
to overhear, " That man cannot live." The
young man happened to know enough about
the power of the mind as a restorative to as-
sert himself, and said to the nurse with great
emphasis, " I will live." He got well.

We do not realize how we weaken our-
selves and destroy our powers of disease
resistance by harboring the sick, the disease
thought, by holding in the mind the idea of
physical weakness and debility.

If we could always keep in the mind the
strong, robust, vigorous ideal, the health ideal,
the ideal of power instead of weakness, the
ideal of perfection, wholeness, completeness ;
if we could only keep in the mind the ideal of
the divine man God intended, and not the mere
burlesque of a man which the breaking of
laws, bad living, and sinning have produced ;
if we could only carry the ideal of personal
power, which is our birthright, there would

HEALTH

77

be -no room for the harboring- of the sickly
ideal — the weak, debilitated, decrepit ideal.

If it were possible to have the mind in us
which was in Christ, we should not have dis-
ease. Disease could not attack us any more
than impurity or sin could find lodgment in
His mind. The time will come when right
thinking will be the great preventive medicine
for all mankind, and when physical discord
will indicate that someone has sinned in his
thought. Humboldt said, " The time will come
when it will be considered a disgrace for a
man to be sick, when the world will look upon
it as a misdemeanor, the result of some vicious
thinking."

I believe the time will come when disease
will not be able to fasten itself upon those
whose thought is pure, clean, and strong, be-
cause this quality of thought is healing. We
used to regard dyspepsia, for example, as the
result of a disordered stomach. Now we know
it is the result of the disordered, discordant
thought. It is the legitimate child of worry
and anxiety, of jealousy and remorse.

The time will come when greed and all
forms of selfishness will be looked upon as a
disease which we pay very dearly for in the
outpicturing of some physical discord. People

78 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

little realize what price they pay in physical
suffering for their selfishness.

We cannot think ill-health ; we cannot hold
the thought of disease ; we cannot harbor con-
victions that this disease or that is lurking in
the system — that there are seeds of disease
within us only waiting for an opportunity to
develop and destroy us without seriously im-
pairing the harmony of the body and its ef-
ficiency.

Every discordant thought, every thought of
ill-health, all the vivid pictures of unfortunate
physical conditions held in the imagination,
all the horrible ghosts of fear — the things we
dread and are anxious about — all the passions
of anger and hatred, jealousy and envy, greed
and selfishness, impair or ruin digestion and
assimilation, and affect the integrity of all
physical functions.

The mind is the health sculptor, and we
cannot surpass the mental health pattern. If
there is a weakness or a flaw in the thinking
model, there will be corresponding deficiencies
in the health statue.

So long as we think ill-health and doubt
our ability to be strong and vigorous ; so long
as we hold the conviction of the presence of
inherited weaknesses and disease tendencies ;

HEALTH 79

so long as the model is defective — perfect
health is impossible. The life, the health follow
the thought, the conviction.

Somehow most people seem to think that
health is something fixed by a sort of destiny
or fate ; that it is largely a question of heredity
and constitution which cannot be materially
altered.

But why should we not think the same
about our happiness, about our vocation? We
take infinite pains and spend many years in
preparing ourselves for our life-work. We
know that a successful career must be based
upon scientific principles of training, of sys-
tem and order ; that every step of a successful
career must be taken only after great thought
and consideration. We know that it means
years of hard work to establish ourselves in
life in a profession or business ; but our health,
upon which everything else hangs — upon
which it depends absolutely — we take very
little trouble to establish.

When we remember that the integrity and
efficiency of all the mental faculties depend
upon health ; that robust health multiplies ten-
fold the power of our initiative ; increases
our creative ability ; generates enthusiasm and
spontaneity; strengthens the quality of judg-

8o PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

ment, the power of discrimination, and the
force of decision, the power of execution, we
should be very diligent to establish it.

We should lay a foundation for our health
just as we establish anything of importance —
by studying and adopting the sanest and the
most scientific methods. We should think
health, talk health, hold the health ideal, just
as a law student should think law, talk law,
read law, live in a law atmosphere.

Health is largely a moral question. Sys-
tematic living alone will not produce it. We
must establish it by right thinking, sane think-
ing.

Health can be established only by thinking
health instead of disease, strength instead of
weakness, harmony instead of discord, truth
thoughts instead of error thoughts, love
thoughts instead of hatred thoughts ; by up-
building thoughts which are constructive in-
stead of destructive — tearing down.

Confidence is a powerful factor in health.
We should thoroughly believe in our ability
to keep ourselves well by healthful, harmo-
nious, happy thinking.

So long as we doubt our ability to maintain
health, so long as we picture to ourselves dis-
ease and physical weakness and vicious or in-

HEALTH 8i

herited tendencies — it is impossible to attain
*n a strong, normal physical condition,
'mfhe time will come when we will no more
cXVow discordant thoughts in our mind than
we would scatter thistle seeds over our gar-
dens. Knowing well that thinking is building,
our thinking will be reflected in our bodies.

To make ill-health an excuse for non-per-
formance of our great life duties will be a
reflection upon our integrity; will indicate
weakness or deception. Sickness and disease
will show that we have not been true in our
thought — in our motives — that we have sinned
and are paying the penalty in suffering and
thwarted ambition.

Many people to-day are ashamed to say
they are ill, because they know that it indi-
cates sin somewhere — a violation of the law of
harmony, of health. We are beginning to see
that it is not only unnecessary to be sick, but
that it is a disgrace for God's creatures to be
whining and ailing and complaining when they
ought to be doing the great things they were
made to do. We ought to be living the abun-
dant life which it was intended that we should
live. We were so planned that existence alone
should be a perpetual joy.

When we get a glimpse of our real divinity,

82 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

we shall absolutely refuse to be sick. We shall
be as much ashamed to confess that we a^'*
suffering from a cold, rheumatism, dyspep
or gout as we should now be to acknowledges,
theft. The coming man will radiate health
and gladness as naturally as the rose exhales
beauty and fragrance. He will radiate life and
vigor as naturally as he breathes. Because he
will think only healthful thoughts, he cannot
possibly radiate anything unhealthful. We re-
flect only the results of our thinking.

Thoughts are things, and they leave their
characteristic marks on the mind. No joy
thought can produce gloom, or health thought
disease. The fear thought held constantly in
the mind cannot produce a state of courage.
It is only the courageous thought that can pro-
duce confidence.

Some great physician has said that there
is something in man which was never born,
is never sick, and never dies ; and it is this
something — this divine, omnipotent force —
which heals our diseases. No matter what else
we may call it, it is the force that creates, that
restores us. We may call it the God principle,
the Christ within us, the divine principle, the
omnipotent force, or any name we please; it
is the creative, the all-sustaining, infinite force. -

HEALTH 83

The same Power that created us repairs us.
H we could only harmonize our lives with this
immortal principle, this best thing in us, we
would reach our highest efficiency, our great-
est possible happiness ; and until we can har-
monize ourselves with this something within
us which was never born and never dies, this
divine principle which never sins, we can
never be efficient or very happy. This is the
only reality in us — the only truth of our being.

The rust which gradually eats away the
piano strings cannot destroy the great law of
harmony. The disease which destroys the nerve
cells, the brain cells, does not affect in the least
our reality — the truth of our being. That is in-
destructible, immortal — beyond the reach of
what we call death. We all feel, like the great
German physician, that there is something
within us which can never be sick, which is not
subject to disease, and which is as immortal as
God Himself.

Man is Mind. That is the great reality of
life. The way to establish health is to think
hourly that you " live and move and have your
being " in the great God principle. That is the
underlying truth in all harmony. Like Paul,
believe that no power can separate you from
this divine love principle, this omnipotent

84 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

power. Love and truth are always working
for you. Carry the conviction constantly that
the God principle is the only power in the uni-
verse. All creation, all life, have their origin
in this.

VI. MENTAL CHEMISTRY

VI. MENTAL CHEMISTRY

Every volition and thought of man is inscribed on his
brain. Thus a man writes his life in his physique, and
thus the angels discover his autobiography in his
structure. — Swedexborg.

HE experiments made by Pro-
fessor Elmer C. Gates have
shown that irascible, malev-
olent, and depressing emo-
tions generate in the system
injurious compounds, some
of which are extremely poi-
sonous ; and that agreeable, happy emotions
generate chemical compounds of nutritious
value, which stimulate the cells to manufac-
ture energy.

" For each bad emotion," says Professor
Gates, " there is a corresponding chemical
change in the tissues of the body. Every good
emotion makes a life-promoting change. Every
thought which enters the mind is registered
in the brain by a change in the structure of
its cells. The change is a physical change more
or less permanent.

" Any one may go into the business of
building his own mind for an hour each day,
calling up pleasant memories and ideas. Let

87

88 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

him summon feelings of benevolence and un-
selfishness, making- this a regular exercise like
swinging dumb-bells. Let him gradually in-
crease the time devoted to these psychical
gymnastics until it reaches sixty or ninety
minutes per diem. At the end of a month he
will find the change in himself surprising. The
alteration will be apparent in his actions and
thoughts. It will have registered in the cell
structure of his brain."

There are many ways of ruining the body
besides smoking or getting drunk, or indulg-
ing in other sensual vices. Anger changes the
chemical properties of the saliva to a poison
dangerous to life. It is well known that sud-
den and violent emotions have not only weak-
ened the heart in a few hours, but have also
caused death and insanity.

It has been discovered by scientists that
there is a chemical difference between that
sudden cold exudation of a person under a
deep sense of guilt, and the ordinary perspira-
tion ; and the state of the mind of a criminal
can sometimes be determined by chemical
analysis of the perspiration, which, when
brought into contact with selenic acid, pro-
duces a distinctive pink color.

" Suppose half a dozen men in a room," says

MENTAL CHEMISTRY 89

Professor Gates; "one feels depressed, another
remorseful, another ill-tempered, another jeal-
ous, another cheerful, another benevolent.
Samples of their perspiration are placed in the
hands of the psychophysicist. Under his ex-
amination they reveal all those emotional con-
ditions distinctly and unmistakably."

It is well known that fear has killed thou-
sands of victims, while, on the other hand,
courage is a great restorer.

Anger in the mother may poison a nursing
child. Rarey, the celebrated horse-tamer, said
that an angry word would sometimes raise the
pulse of a horse ten beats in a minute. Experi-
ments with dogs show similar results.

If this is true of a beast, what can we say
of its power upon human beings, especially
upon a child? Strong mental emotion often
causes vomiting. Extreme anger or fright may
produce jaundice. A violent paroxysm of rage
has caused apoplexy and death. Indeed, in
more than one instance, a single night of
mental agony has wrecked a life.

The Almighty never intended that wc should
be the sport of our passions, or the victims of
harmful suggestions. The power of mastery
is within ourselves, but we must develop it,
cultivate it, use it.

90 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

That man is truly great who can rule his
mental kingdom, who at will can master his
moods ; who knows enough of mental chemis-
try to neutralize a fit of the " blues," to anti-
dote any evil, poisonous thought with the
opposite thought, just as a chemist neutralizes
an acid which is eating into his flesh by apply-
ing an alkaline antidote. A man ignorant of
chemistry might apply another acid which
would eat still deeper into his flesh ; but the
chemist knows the antidote of the particular
acid that is doing the mischief, and can kill
its corrosive, eating quality in an instant.

So the mental chemist knows how to coun-
teract the corrosive, wearing, tearing power
of the despondent, depressing thought by its
-cheerful antidote. He knows that the optimis-
tic thought is sure death to the pessimistic
thought ; that harmony will quickly neutral-
ize any form of discord ; that the health
thought will antidote the ailing, sick thought;
that the love thought will kill the hatred
thought, the jealous, revengeful thought. He
does not need to suffer mental anguish, be-
cause he always has his mental remedy with
him. The moment he applies its antidote, the
fatal corrosive power of the malignant thought
is neutralized.

MENTAL CHEMISTRY 91

If children were taught mental chemis-
try, as they are taught physical chemistry,
there would be no ailing pessimists, no victims
of the " blues." We should not see so many
long, dejected, gloomy faces everywhere. We
should not see so many criminals, so many
sorrowful, tragic failures in every rank of
society, in every walk of life.

Many of us keep our minds more or less
poisoned much of the time because of our
ignorance of mental chemistry. We suffer
from mental self-poison and do not know it.
Neither do we know how to antidote the
poison passions which are working havoc in
our bodies.

Nothing else will so exhaust the vitality and
whittle away life as violent fits of hatred,
bitter jealousy, or a determination for revenge..
We see the victims of these passions worn out,
haggard, old, even before they have reached
middle life. There are cases on record where
fierce jealousy and hatred raging through the
system aged the victims by years in a few
days or weeks.

Yet these mental poisons are just as easily
antidoted, conquered, as physical poisons
which have well-known antidotes. If we are
sick with a fever we go to a physician for an

92 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

antidote; but when jealousy or hatred is rag-
ing within us we suffer tortures until the fever
gradually wears itself out, not knowing that
by an application of love which would quickly
antidote it, we could easily have avoided not
only the suffering but also the wear and tear
of the entire system, especially of the delicate
brain structure.

As there is no filth, no impurity, in any
water which cannot be removed by the science
of chemistry, so there is no human mind so
filthy, so poisoned with vicious thinking and
vicious habits, so saturated with vice, that it
cannot be cleared up by right thinking; by
the counter suggestion of the thing that has
polluted it.

It is the poison-specialist's, the toxicologist's
duty to know what will antidote every kind
of poison. He would not try to save a patient
from arsenic poison with the antidote for
morphine. He must have the arsenic antidote,
and he can tell by the symptoms in each case
what poison has been taken.

Many a precious life has been lost which
could have been saved if people around the
victim at the time had only known the anti-
dote of the poison taken. I have known a man
poisoned with carbolic acid to be given the

MENTAL CHEMISTRY 93

antidote for prussic acid, which, of course,
did not save the patient, because it was not
the right antidote.

The time will come when every intelligent
person will be expert enough in mental chemis-
try to be able to apply the proper antidotes
for special forms of mental poisoning.

We shall find that it is just as easy to coun-
teract an unfriendly, disagreeable, vicious
thought by turning on the counter thought, as
it is to rob the hot water of its burning power
by turning on the cold-water faucet. We shall
be able to regulate the temperature of our
thought as the temperature of w^ater. If the
water is too hot we simply turn on the cold
faucet. If we feel our brain heating up with
hot temper, we shall simply turn on the love
thought, the peace thought, and the anger
heat will be instantly counteracted.

In other words, it is perfectly possible, and
not very difficult, to absolutely control the
quality of the thought, to regulate our peace
of mind, to maintain poise and balance, a
sweet, peaceful mental serenity, under the
most trying circumstances.

It will be absolutely impossible, by any kind
of aggravation or work or passion or torture,
to disturb the balance, the dignified serenity,

94 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

of the coming' man. It will be impossible to
make him suffer, because he knows the secret
of counteracting the vicious, harmful thought
so that it will be neutralized or will fall flat.
If the coming man feels the " blues " coming
on, he will be able to counteract this condition
in an instant. He will know how to stop the
eating of the acid thought with the alkali
thought. If he feels a sense of weakness com-
ing on he will immediately annihilate it by a
flood thought of strength and robustness —
vigor.

Think, for example, how many human ills
can be antidoted by the magical chemistry of
the love thought ! It is a solvent for selfishness
and greed, a destroyer of hatred, envy, and
jealousy, of revenge, criminal intent, and a
score of other mental and physical enemies.

Think what it would mean if we could
only keep the mind filled with loving, helpful,
hopeful, encouraging, cheerful, fearless sug-
gestions! We would not then need to deny
their opposites, for, when the positive is pres-
ent, the negative flees.

We cannot drive the darkness out of a
room. We let in the light and the darkness
flees.

The way to get rid of discord is to flood

MENTAL CHEMISTRY 95

the mind with harmony ; then the discord
vanishes, as darkness flees before the light.

The way to get despondency and discour-
agement out of the mind is to fill it with en-
couraging, hopeful, cheerful pictures. Discour-
agement and despondency are killed by their
opposites. They are the natural antidotes.

An acid is instantly killed by the presence
of an alkali. Fire cannot exist in the presence
of its opposite, carbonic-acid gas or water. We
cannot drive hatred, jealousy, revenge out of
the mind by will power, by trying to force
them out. Love is the alkali which will im-
mediately neutralize, antidote them.

Hatred cannot live an instant in the presence
of love. The Golden Rule will kill all jealousy
and revenge. They cannot live together.

The trouble with most people is that they
try to drive out the bad in themselves instead
of antidoting it with the good. They try to
force hatred out of their minds without the
assistance of its antidote.

Change the mental attitude — think love, feel
love for that object which we hated, and the
hatred is instantly neutralized. Whenever you
are timid, inclined to express doubt, fear or
anxiety in any form, expel these destructive
suggestions with their counter suggestions.

96 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

Remember that every morbid mood, every
discordant, weak thought is a symptom of a
poisoned mind. You have the antidote — just
the opposite thought. Your mind remedy is
always present. The antidote for all error is
truth, for all discord, is harmony. You do
not have to pay a physician. You have your
own recipe always with you. When you have
learned the secrets of mental chemistry you
can instantly stop every symptom and check
every approach of mind disease.

Every true, beautiful, and helpful thought
is a suggestion which, if held in the mind,
tends to reproduce itself there — clarifies the
ideals and uplifts the life. While these inspir-
ing and helpful suggestions fill the mind their
opposites cannot put in their deadly work, be-
cause the two cannot live together. They are
mutually antagonistic, natural enemies. One
excludes the other.

I know a woman of beautiful character who
has acquired the art of quickly refreshing her
mind even in the most trying and exacting
conditions. Knowing the power of mental im-
ages to renew the mind, she has made a study
of her thought enemies and learned to elimi-
nate all those which suggest dark, unfortunate
images, by dwelling on their opposites — those

MENTAL CHEiMISTRY 97

which bring beautiful, cheerful, uplifting, en-
couraging pictures to her mind.

By cherishing one and excluding the other,
she freshens and clarifies her thought and re-
juvenates her life at will.

Through her thorough knowledge and prac-
tice of mental chemistry, she has been able to
maintain a calm, sweet serenity, a cheerful
mental balance and harmony of disposition
which endears her to all who know her.

The human body is made exclusively of
cells. We are nothing but a mass of cells of
twelve different varieties, such as brain cells,
bone cells, muscle cells, etc. The maximum of
health and power depends upon the absolute
integrity of every cell. Sickness and disease
simply mean that some of the cells in the body
are impaired.

Many people seem to think that thought
only affects the brain ; but the fact is ive think
all over.

Physiologists have found gray brain matter
in the tips of the fingers of the blind. The
marvellous feats of the blind; the fact that
they can distinguish most delicate textures,
denominations of money, colors, even fine
tints, shades, all show that thinking is not
confined to the brain. We think all over.

98 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

The body is a sort of extended brain. Every
thought that enters the brain cells is quickly
communicated to every cell in the entire body,
thus accounting for the tremendous instan-
taneous influence of a shock caused by fatal
news or some terrible catastrophe to every
part of the body, instantly affecting all the
secretions and functions.

The effect of bad news in a telegram often
instantly affects the heart, stomach, and brain.
This explains the numerous cases in medical
history where the hair has turned white in a
few hours, sometimes in a few minutes, from
the shock of bad news. The transmission of
the shock from the brain to every cell in the
body is almost instantaneous.

The billions of cells in the body are all tied
together in the closest contact — by affinity,
sympathy. What injures or helps one, injures
or helps all. Every cell suffers or is a gainer,
gets a life impulse or a death impulse, accord-
ing to the character of the thought.

It has been established by experiments that
we pay for all our unfortunate, vicious think-
ing in impaired cell life. Innumerable ex-
periments have established the fact that all
healthful, hopeful, joyous, encouraging, up-
lifting, optimistic, cheerful thoughts improve

MENTAL CHEMISTRY 99

the cell life of the entire body. They are crea-
tive, while the opposite thoughts are destructive
of cell life.

When we learn the fact that every thought
and emotion is quickly registered, even in the
remotest cell in the body, then we shall learn
to be extremely careful of the character of the
thought and the emotion. We shall then know
that the harboring of sick, discouraged, de-
spondent thoughts, thoughts of fear, worry,
jealousy, hatred, anger, and selfishness, will
deteriorate the integrity of the entire cell life,
and that the health standards will not only
drop, but that our mental and physical energy
alike will be diminished accordingly. We shall
then know that the health thought, the robust,
vigorous thought will react upon and give an
uplift to every cell in the body.

The greatest work a human being can do
is to keep his entire cell life in the superbest
possible condition. Then he will be absolutely
normal ; and when normal he will be right,
truthful, honest, sincere, noble.

Much of the unhappiness, the inefficiency
and the wretched, slipshod work, much of the
crime of the world, are due to impaired cell
life from vicious, unscientific thinking.

When a person is perfectly normal, he has

loo PEACE, rOWER, AND PLENTY

no desire to do wrong. It is when his cell life
is deiiuM-alized by bad thinking-, which leads to
vicious living;, dissipated habits, that he is
tempted to go wrong. So, not only the highest
morality, the supremest hapi)iness, but the
highest efficiency, depend upon the healthy
condition of the cell life.

How comparatively easy it would be to do
right and to be successful if the body were
always in the best condition!

It is when the cell life is demoralized that
the standard is lowered; it is because we are
abnormal, that we are tempted to vicious liv-
ing. The blood is poisoned from vicious think-
ing and we go wrong in spite of ourselves.

Every individual is afloat in a sea of thought,
wdiere currents are running in every direction.
When we are subject to all sorts of opposing
influences, conflicting thought-currents, we
soon come to grief in this turbulent sea, if
we do not know the laws of mental chemistry.
We must know how to neutralize our enemy
thoughts by applying their antidotes. We must
be able to master our moods, to direct our
thoughts, and thus protect our lives from all
evil influences within and without.

One of the great problems in establishing
wireless telegraphy was the neutralizing or

MENTAL CHEMISTRY loi

getting rid of the influence of conflicting cur-
rents going in every direction through the
atmosphere. The great problem of character-
building, life-building, is to counteract, to
nullify conflicting thought-currents, discord-
ant thought-currents, which bring all sorts
of bad, injurious suggestions to the mind.
Tens of thousands have already solved this
problem. Everyone can apply mental chemis-
try, the right thought-current to neutralize the
wrong one.

He is a fortunate man who early learns the
secret of scientific mental culture, and who
acquires the inestimable art of holding the
right suggestion in his mind, so that he can
triumph over the dominant note in his environ-
ment when it is unfriendly to his highest good.

There is nothing truer than that " we can
make ourselves over by using and developing
the right kind of thought-forces."

Not long ago a young man whom I had not
seen for several vears called on me, and I was
amazed at the tremendous change in him.
When I had last seen him he was pessimistic,
discouraged, almost despairing ; he had soured
on life, lost confidence in human nature and in
himself. During the interval he had completely
changed. The sullen, bitter expression that

I02 PEACE, POWER, AXD PLENTY

used to characterize his face was replaced by
one of joy and gladness. He was radiant,
cheerful, hopeful, and happy.

f The young man had married an optimistic
wife, who had the happy faculty of laughing
/ him out of his " blues "' or melancholy, chang-
ing the tenor of his thoughts, cheering him up,
and making him put a higher estimate on him-
self. His removal from an unhappy environ-
ment, together with his wife's helpful " new-
thought " influence and his own determination
to make good, had all worked together to
bring about a revolution in his mental make-
up. The love-principle and the use of the right
thought-force had verily made a new man of
him.

We are beginning to learn that man carries
the great panacea for all ills within himself;
that the antidotes for the worst poisons — tlie
poisons of hatred, jealousy, anger, revenge,
a false ambition, and of all evil thoughts and
passions — exist in his own mind in the form
of love, charity, and good-will essences.

/

VII. IMAGINATION AND HEALTH

VII. IMAGINATION AND HEALTH

Fancy can save or kill; it hath closed up

Wounds when the balsam could not, and without
The aid of salves — to think hath been a cure.

— Caetwright.

OT long ago a clergyman was
sent to a hospital, suffering
terribly, and so weak that he
could scarcely hold up his
head. He said he had swal-
lowed several false teeth and
the plate, and that he felt the
horrible grinding and cutting of these in his
stomach.

The physician in attendance tried to talk
him out of this idea, but to no purpose. A little
while later a telegram from his wife informed
him that the teeth had been found under the
bed. Mortified and chagrined at having made
such a fool of himself, the clergyman, free
from his imaginary suffering, immediately got
up, dressed himself, paid his bill and went
home without assistance.

As long as the man was convinced that the
false teeth were in his stomach, all the talking
in the world could not have made him believe
that his suffering was a delusion. This con-
viction had to be changed first.

io6 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

Physicians tell us that susceptibility to con-
tagious diseases depends very largely upon
the mental condition, that it is possible for a
person during great excitement to work with
perfect immunity among patients suffering
from the most malignant diseases.

I have seen a vigorous, athletic man so com-
pletely paralyzed by the shock from an ac-
cident that he could scarcely lift a pound
weight. He was as weak and nerveless as a
child. No material substance had touched him
or opposed him — just a terrifying thought,
which came like lightning, did the work, made
a pvgmy of a giant in an instant.

Well-authenticated cases have been recorded
by physicians where patients, who had a mortal
fear of chloroform, went into syncope before
a whiff of chloroform had been given. They
became perfectly unconscious through the
suggestion of their own minds.

I know of a physician who, while away
from home on a fishing trip, was summoned
to attend a patient who was suffering inde-
scribable agony. He had no medicine case, no
drugs with him; but the tactful physician,
knowing the power of suggestion, made small
powders out of ordinary flour and gave in-
structions with the greatest care as to the

IMAGINATION AND HEALTH 107

exact time and manner of taking. They were
to be given every few minutes.

The patient was told that he was being
treated by a noted physician, and his great
faith in the physician and the remedy in a
short time wrought a marvellous change in his
condition. He said that he felt the effects of
the medicine throughout his entire being.
Flour and faith did the work.

In the medical report, after the great epi-
demic of yellow fever in Philadelphia, we find
this reference to the remarkable healing balm
in the spiritual influence of the great Dr. Rush.

" Dr. Rush's presence zvas a powerful stimu-
lant; men recovered to zvhom he gave no
medicine, as if his word was enough to turn
the fever."

The sick thought must go before the sick
condition will depart. When the diseased
thought goes, the body at once rebounds and
becomes normal.

I recently heard of a young lady who,
while at the theatre with her fiance, com-
plained suddenly of feeling faint. Her fiance,
a young doctor, took something out of his
pocket, and, giving it to her, whispered, " Keep
this tabloid in your mouth, but don't swallow
it." The young lady did as directed, and im-

io8 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

mediately felt better. Curious to know what
the " tabloid " was, which, although it had not
dissolved, had given her such relief, she ex-
amined it on her return home, and found —
a small button !

Medical history shows that thousands of
people have died the victims of their imagina-
tion. They were convinced they had diseases
which in reality they never had. The trouble
was not in the body but in the mind.

Few of us realize the almost superhuman
power of the imagination in its effect upon the
body. Nothing is better known than that many
people every year die with imaginary hydro-
phobia. It is a very common thing to regard a
dog as mad which simply has a fit, or is so
frightened at being pursued by those who are
afraid of it, and who project their state of
mind to its brain that it appears to be mad.

A short time ago I read a story about a
young officer in India who consulted a great
physician because he felt fagged from the ex-
cessive heat and long hours of service. The
physician examined him and said he would
write to him on the morrow. The letter the pa-
tient received informed him that his left lung
was entirely gone, his heart seriously affected,
and advised him to adjust his business affairs

IMAGINATION AND HEALTH 109

at once, " Of course, you may live for weeks,"
it said, " but you had best not leave important
matters undecided."

Naturally the young ofificer was dismayed
by this death warrant. He grew rapidly worse,
and in twenty-four hours respiration was dif-
ficult and he had an acute pain in the region
of the heart. He took to his bed with the con-
viction that he should never rise from it.
During the night he grew rapidly worse and
his servant sent for the doctor.

" What on earth have you been doing to
yourself?" demanded the physician. "There
was no indication of this sort when I saw you
yesterday."

" It is my heart, I suppose," weakly an-
swered the patient in a whisper.

" Your heart ! " repeated the doctor. " Your
heart was all right yesterday."

" My lungs, then," said the patient.

" What is the matter with you, man ? You
don't seem to have been drinking."

" Your letter, your letter ! " gasped the pa-
tient. " You said I had only a few weeks to
live."

" Are you crazy ? " said the doctor. " I
wrote you to take a week's vacation in the
hills and you would be all right."

no PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

The patient, with the pallor of death in his
face, could scarcely raise his head from the
pillows, but he drew from under the bed-
clothes the doctor's letter.

" Heavens, man ! " cried the physician ;
" this was meant for another patient ! My as-
sistant misplaced the letters."

The young officer sat up in bed immediately,
and was entirely well in a few hours.

When I was in the Harvard Medical
School, one of the best professors there, a
celebrated physician, who had been lecturing
upon the power of the imagination, warned
the students against the dangers of imagining
that they themselves had the disease about
which they studied. During this very time the
professor told me that he got it into his head
that he was developing Bright's disease in his
own system. This conviction became so strong
that he did not even dare to have an examina-
tion made. He was so certain that he was in
the grasp of this so-called fatal disease that he
preferred to die rather than be told of his con-
dition by another physician. He lost his ap-
petite, lost flesh rapidly, and became almost
incapable of lecturing, until one day a medical
friend, astonished at the change in his appear-
ance, asked what was the matter with him.

IMAGINATION AND HEALTH m

" I have Bright's disease," was the reply.
" I am sure of it, for I have every symptom."

" Nonsense," said his friend ; " you have
nothing of the kind."

After a great deal of persuasion, the pro-
fessor was induced to submit to an examina-
tion, and it was discovered that there was not
the slightest evidence of Bright's disease in his
system. He rallied so quickly that even in a
dav those who knew him noticed the chansre.
His appetite returned, his flesh came back, and
he was a new man.

Medical history is full of examples of peo-
ple who have been made sick purely through,
the domination of the imagination. A London
medical journal gives the following instances :

" Two London men stayed in the country
at a house where scarlet fever was reported.
One, an unimaginative, healthy-minded fellow,
awoke all right in the morning. The other, a
nervous, sensitive man, was very ill — had not
slept and had broken out into a terrible rash,
which both declared to be scarlet fever. A
wire to a London medical man was despatched,
and by the first train he hurried down. The
supposed fever patient proved to have no
fever at all beyond an imaginative one. In
fact, there was no scarlet fever in the house.

112 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

The case had been wrongly diagnosed, and
the frightened visitor had tortured himself
into a violent rash, all without cause.

" At another house two men stayed, where
an inmate had died of cholera. One man
placed in the room in which the patient had
died was in ignorance of what had occurred.
He slept well and was no worse. The other,
wrongly told that the room in which he slept
was that in which the cholera patient had died,
spent a night of mental agony and in the
morning was actually found to be suffering
from this complaint. He died of cholera."

People read these stories and believe them,
yet cannot see that their own perverted im-
aginations, their own sick, discordant, dis-
couraged thoughts will produce similar effects
upon themselves.

We are all at some time in our lives victims
of the imagination. The conviction that we
have been exposed to a terrible malady, to
some incurable, contagious disease, completely
upsets the entire system and reverses the proc-
esses of the various functions ; the mind does
not act with its customary vitality and power
and there is a general dropping of physical
and mental standards all along the line, until
we become the victims of the thing we fear.

VIII. HOW SUGGESTION INFLU-
ENCES HEALTH

VIII. HOW SUGGESTION INFLU-
ENCES HEALTH

By holding the thought of what we wish to become,
we can in a large measure become what we desire.

Man is beginning to find that the same Principle
which created him, repairs, restores, renews him.

OMEONE has said: "The
mortalest enemy you can
have is the friend who meets
you and says : ' You are not
looking well to-day; what's
the matter ? ' From that mo-
ment you don't feel well.
Your friend has blasted your hope and spread
a pall over your brain."

The power of suggestion is strikingly illus-
trated by the fact that a hypnotic subject under
control may be burned until a blister is raised,
by the application of a cold coin.

Now, if it is possible for the thought sug-
gested by another to produce a blister on the
body, it does not seem strange that a sugges-
tion can cause or cure dyspephbo and other
ills. If it is possible to make the hypnotic sub-
ject stagger and reel like a drunken man, just
by holding in his mind the suggestion that a
glass of pure water he drank was whiskey, it

"5

ii6 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

is certainly possible to produce all sorts of
effects by mental suggestion.

Some examples of the marvellous power
of suggestion are given by Dr. Frederik Van
Eden, a graduate of medicine at the Uni-
versity of Amsterdam, and an advocate of the
psychotherapeutic method of healing the sick.
In speaking of Professor Debove, of Paris,
an authority in such cases, he said:

" At his clinic in the hospital of St. Andral
he showed me how he could give a patient a
glass of water, telling him that it was wine,
and how the patient took it for wine. I saw
how he told a man that a cold silver spoon
was glowing hot, and how the man dropped
it with every token of burning pain. How he
gave another a book and said : ' Look at it ;
it's all white paper ! all blank ! . . . Now blow
on it. Look again ! — it's all portraits, all por-
traits ! Now blow again ! — all landscapes and
pictures ! Look ! ' And the man saw every-
thing in great amazement, and even described
the landscapes and portraits which nobody
saw but 1 self. ' Well, I never saw magic
like this,' said the man.

" ' ril do better,' said Debove. ' Shut your
eyes. When you open them, I have no head.'
And as the man looked up he stared at the

SUGGESTION AND HEALTH 117

professor with a wild, scared look. ' Well,*
said Debove, ' how do you like me without
my head ? ' And the poor man struck his own
head with a violent blow and said : ' For sure,
I have gone mad ! ' "

I have seen an experiment tried on a horse,
to make him believe he was sick. He was
covered with blankets, rubbed with medicines,
pitied and petted until he lost his appetite, and
could not be induced to eat or drink. Another
perfectly sound horse was so thoroughly con-
vinced, in a short time, by the holding up of
his foot, feeling of it, bandaging it, and rub-
bing it with liniment, that he was lame, that
he actually limped when he attempted to walk.

It is well known that the fears, the anxieties,
and the worries of mothers have a great deal
to do with the diseases of their children.

The expectant mental attitude of nervous
mothers who are always on the lookout for
the enemies of their darlings tends to invite, to
attract, the very things they fear. Constantly
watching for symptoms of any disease that
happens to be in their neighborhood, the
mental pictures photographed on their brains
are quickly communicated to the impression-
able mind of the child and impair his bodily
functions.

ii8 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

In a home which I visited recently, the
mother kept telling her little boy how ill he
looked, asking him how he felt, and giving
him doses of this and doses of that. At least
half a dozen times during the evening she
asked the different children of the family how
they felt, if they had a headache or a cold.
She was worried all the time about them;
afraid they would get into draughts, go out-
doors bareheaded, or get their feet wet. She
was constantly warning them to avoid these
things, and telling them that if they didn't
they would get croup, or pneumonia, or some-
thing terrible would happen to them. In other
words, she kept the picture of physical discord
constantly in the minds of her children. The
result was that some member of the family
was sick most of the time. The mother said
she could not go out much because there was
so much sickness in her family.

The father was almost as bad as the mother
in worrying about the health of the family.
He would call his little boy to him, feel his
pulse, tell him his skin was hot, that he was
feverish ; he would look at his tongue and
remark that he was a sick boy. The result was
the boy actually thought himself sick and had
to go to bed.

SUGGESTION AND HEALTH 119

How little parents realize the harm they do
in projecting their own discordant thoughts
and fears into their children's receptive minds,
thus tending to develop the very thing they
are trying to avoid !

Think of children being brought up in such
an atmosphere of fear and anxiety and disease-
picturing, constantly warned of danger, and
cautioned all the time not to do this or that,
until they begin to think there are very few
things that a person can do with safety ! They
grow up with a terrible fear of disease that
becomes a perpetual nightmare.

If parents only knew what an unmitigated
curse fear of disease is, they would try to
drive it out of their children's minds ; they
never would picture symptoms of physical
discord of any kind.

We are just beginning to appreciate the
marvellous power of suggestion to uplift or
depress the mind. Only recently I heard a very
intelligent woman say that she was forced to
take to her bed for the greater part of a day
because of the depressing influence of a maga-
zine story she had just read. The story was
written by a famous writer. It was strong,
but brutal. It appealed to what was morbid in
her mind and completely prostrated her.

I20 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

It is common for medical students to be-
come ill through the horrible suggestions of
the dissecting rooms, and the depressing in-
fluence which comes from the constant study
of disease conditions.

On the other hand, the constant mental con-
tact with cheerful, hopeful, health thoughts,
must tend to reproduce the corresponding
qualities in the body.

The mind of a sick person is in more or less
of a helpless, subjective, negative condition,
and is very susceptible to thought influences,
good or bad. In health, the positive, creative
mental attitude gives the mind the power of
resistance, which protects it from its enemies.

Most of us know what a glorious uplift and
stimulus we have received when ill, from a
call from one who is cheerful and optimistic,
and who injects hope and courage into us.
And we know how we dread to have some
people call on us when we are ill, because they
rob us of hope and leave us in such a dejected
mood by their long faces and pessimistic
minds. They always leave the depressing shad-
ows of gloom and discouragement behind them.

Sick people, like children, require a great
deal of encouragement. They want hope held
out to them.

SUGGESTION AND HEALTH 121

Imagine what an uplift it would be to a
patient if his physician, nurse, relatives, and
friends were all trying to radiate hope, good
cheer, and courage, as will be the common
custom in the future !

The cheerful, optimistic physician, who is
always reassuring his patients, arousing their
healing energies (potencies which are in all
of us), telling them how well they look, hold-
ing out hope to them, and trying to cheer
them up, has a powerful influence for good.
The optimism of many physicians is worth
infinitely more to their patients than all the
remedies they prescribe.

I once knew two physicians in hospitals in
Boston who illustrated this point. One was an
extreme optimist with a keen sense of humor.
He was always cracking jokes with the pa-
tients, cheering them up, and telling funny
stories. The whole atmosphere of the wards
was entirely changed after he had passed
through them. His bright, cheerful face and
sunny optimism gave the patients a great up-
hft.

The other physician was morose, stern,
silent, profound, a man of great learning but
of few words and who seldom smiled. If he
found a patient not looking quite so well as

122 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

usual he did not hesitate to tell him so, and
that he was losing ground.

He was conscientious and always said what
he thought, even when it was cruel. The
sick one, thus discouraged, would often im-
mediately lose heart and collapse.

Physicians little realize how implicitly pa-
tients pin their faith to them and how closely
they watch their faces for signs of encourage-
ment, a ray of hope.

The most advanced physicians of all schools
are beginning to see the uplifting force and
healing power in a patient's own confidence in
his recovery.

Some conscientious physicians think they
should always tell the patient exactly how
he is, that it is his right to know, especially
when in extreme danger. Now, there might
be reason in this if the physician were om-
niscient, if he never erred in his diagnosis,
if he could measure with exactitude every
force acting in the man ; but even the most
learned physicians feel that they know com-
paratively little about the human mechanism.
They know that patients often recover after
eminent physicians in consultation have given
up all hope. Why should they not give the
patient the benefit of a doubt, especially when

SUGGESTION AND HEALTH 123

they know the power of a depressing thought
or unfavorable verdict on one in an extremely
weak condition? Does a physician owe his
patient a greater duty than to help him all he
can to recover? There is a great healing
power in hope, in confidence.

The influence of the strong mind of the
physician on the weak, discouraged, exhausted
patient is far-reaching and he should give him
as much mental uplift and hope as possible
There are times when a physician owes his
patient an infinitely greater duty than to tell
him the truth, or what he believes to be the
truth.

The power of suggestion on expectant minds
is often little less than miraculous. An invalid
with a disappointed ambition, who thinks he
has been robbed of his chances in life, and
who has suffered for years, becomes all
wrought up over some new remedy which is
advertised to do marvels. He is in such an
expectant state of mind that he is willing to
make any sacrifice to obtain the remedy, and
when he gets it, he is in such a receptive mood
that he responds quickly to the suggestion and
thinks it is the medicine he has taken which
has worked the magic.

Religious history is full of examples of peo-

124 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

pie who have been cured by going to famed
springs, by bathing in sacred waters, or
streams supposed to have great curative
qualities.

People who go to health resorts attribute
their improvement to change of air or to the
waters they drink, when, as a matter of fact,
it has probably been wrought by change of
environment, change of mental suggestion, as
much as by the change of air or water.

Buoyancy of mind, courage, hope, and
cheerfulness are factors that far outweigh
drugs in the cure of the sick, and should be
encouraged in every possible way.

The trouble with us is that we do not realize
the omnipotent remedies that lie within our
own minds. There is not a human ill which
does not have its specific remedy — not a pallia-
tive, but an absolute cure — named in the Bible.

Nothing is more strongly emphasized in the
Sacred Book than the fact that love heals.
We have suggestions of this in the balm of
the mother love which soothes and cures the
child's fears and all its little hurts and ills.
How naturally the child runs to the mother for
a kiss to heal its bruises, and into the shelter
of her arms to ward ofif whatever it fears !

If the child feels this healing power of the

SUGGESTION AND HEALTH 125

mother love, what shall we say of the potency
of divine love — love that is selfless ? The Bible
assures us that " perfect love casteth out
fear," and fear is one of the most potent
sources of discord and disease.

What better remedy could be imagined for
those suffering from fear — the greatest enemy
of the human race — than is to be found in the
study and application of the ninety-first psalm ?
Could anything be more reassuring than the
opening words of this grand psalm — " He that
dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty " ?

There is no fear, no fit of the " blues," no
despondency or discouragement, which this
psalm, if properly studied and applied, would
not cure. Think what its realization would
mean to those who are in the very depths of
despair. Could there be any other refuge such
as that " under the shadow of the Almighty "?

He who lives close to God (good), who
abides in His love, fears nothing, is not wor-
ried or anxious, because he feels always the
protection of omnipotent Power and infinite
Wisdom.

A few passages from the Scriptures will
show how freely and fully abundant life,
health, strength — all good things — are prom-

126 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

ised to those who heed the words of God, who
love Him and put their faith in Him.

Attend to my words. . . . For they are life
unto those that find them, and health to all
their flesh. — Prov. iv, 20, 22.

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength ; they shall mount up with wings
as eagles ; they shall run, and not be weary ; and
they shall walk, and not faint. — Isaiah xl, 31.

He sent his word and healed them. — Psalm
cvii, 20.

I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.
— Psalm XXX, 2.

His flesh shall be fresher than a child's. —
Job xxxiii, 25.

For I will restore health unto thee, and I
will heal thee of thy wounds. — Jer. xxx, 17.

Behold, I will heal thee. — H Kings xx, 5.

Then shall thy light break forth as the
morning, and thine health shall spring forth
speedily. — Isaiah Iviii, 8.

I am the Lord that healeth thee. — Exodus
XV, 26.

There shall be no more death, neither sor-
row, nor crying, neither shall there be any
more pain ; for the former things are passed
away. — Rev. xxi, 4.

" Neither shall any plague " (discord or

SUGGESTION AND HEALTH 127

harm) "come nigh thy dwelHng" (Psalm xci,
10), is the promise to him that " dwelleth in the
secret place of the Most High" (Psalm xci, i).

Let thine heart keep my commandments :
For length of days, and long life, and peace,
shall they add to thee. — Prov. iii, 1-3.

When we are thoroughly intrenched in the
conviction of our unity with the All-good ;
when we realize that we do not take on health
from outside by acquiring it, but that we are
health ; that we do not absorb a bit of justice,
here and there, but that we are justice; that
we do not take on truth, a little here and a
little there, but that we are truth itself, prin-
ciple, then we shall really begin to live.

I believe that most people are conscious of
a power deep in their nature which would
remedy all their ills if they only knew how
to get hold of it. We all feel that there is
something divine in us, something in the flesh
that is not of it, a power back of the flesh
that will ultimately redeem us and bring us
into the state of blessedness which we instinc-
tively feel is the right of the children of the
King of kings. ("The great end of life is to
train ourselves to find this creative, rejuvenat-
ing, life-giving force and to ai)ply it to our
everyday life. )

IX. WHY GROW OLD?

IX. WHY GROW OLD?

"The face cannot betray the years until the mind has
given its consent. The mind is the sculptor."

"We renew our bodies by renewing our thoughts;
change our bodies, our habits, by changing our

thoughts."

OT long ago the former secre-
tary to a justice of the New
York Supreme Court com-
mitted suicide on his seven-
tieth birthday.

" The Statute of Limita-
tions ; a Brief Essay on the
Osier Theory of Life," was found beside the
dead body. It read in part :

" Threescore and ten — this is the scriptural
statute of limitations. After that, active work
for man ceases, his time on earth has ex-
pired. . . .

" I am seventy — threescore and ten — and I
am fit only for the chimney-corner. . . ."

This man had dwelt so long on the so-called
Osier theory — that a man is practically use-
less and only a burden to himself and the
world after sixty — and the biblical limitation
of life to threescore years and ten, that he
made up his mind he would end it all on his
seventieth birthday.

131

132 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

Leaving aside Dr. Osier's theory, there is no
doubt that the acceptance in a strictly literal
sense of the biblical life limit has proved a
decided injury to the race. We are powerfully
influenced by our self-imposed limitations and
convictions, and it is well known that many
people die very near the limit they set for
themselves, even though they are in good
health when this conviction settles upon them.
Yet there is no probability that the Psalmist
had any idea of setting any limit to the life
period, or that he had any authority whatever
for so doing. Many of the sayings in the Bible
which people take so literally and accept
blindly as standards of living are merely fig-
ures of speech used to illustrate an idea. So
far as the Bible is concerned, there is just as
much reason for setting the life limit at one
hundred and twenty or even at Methuselah's
age (nine hundred and sixty-nine) as at sev-
enty or eighty. There is no evidence in the
Scriptures that even suggests the existence
of an age limit beyond which man was not
supposed or allowed to pass.

In fact the whole spirit of the Bible is to
encourage long life through sane and health-
ful living. It points to the duty of living a
useful and noble life, of making as much of

WHY GROW OLD? 133

ourselves as possible, all of which tends to
prolong our years on earth.

It would be a reflection upon the Creator to
suggest that He would limit human life to less
than three times the age at which it reaches
maturity (about thirty) when all the analogy
of nature, especially in the animal kingdom,
points to at least five times the length of the
maturing period. Should not the highest mani-
festation of God's creation have a length of
life at least equal to that of the animal?
Infinite wisdom does not shake the fruit off
the tree before it is ripe.

We do not half realize what slaves we are to
our mental attitudes, what power our convic-
tions have to influence our lives. Multitudes
of people undoubtedly shorten their lives by
many years because of their deep-seated con-
victions that they will not live beyond a certain
age — the age, perhaps, at which their parents
died. How often we hear this said : " I do not
expect to live to be very old ; my father and
mother died young."

Not long ago a New York man, in perfect
health, told his family that he was certain he
should die on his next birthday. On the morn-
ing of his birthday his family, alarmed because
he refused to go to work, saying that he

134 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

should certainly die before midnight, insisted
upon calling in the family physician, who ex-
amined him and said there was nothing the
matter with him. But the man refused to eat,
grew weaker and weaker during the day, and
actually died before midnight. The conviction
that he was going to die had become so in-
trenched in his mind that the whole force of
his mentality acted to cut off the life force, and
finally to strangle completely the life processes.

Now, if this man's conviction could have
been changed by some one who had sufficient
power over him, or if the mental suggestion
that he was going to live to a good old age
had been implanted in his mind in place of the
death idea, he would probably have lived many
years longer.

If you have convinced yourself, or if the
idea has been ingrained into the very structure
of your being by your training or the multi-
tudes of examples about you, that you will be-
gin to show the marks of age at about fifty,
that at sixty you will lose the power of your
faculties, your interest in life ; that you will
become practically useless and have to retire
from your business, and that thereafter you
will continue to decline until you are cut off
entirely, there is no power in the world that

WHY GROW OLD? 135

can keep the old-age processes and signs from
developing in you.

Thought leads. If it is an old-age thought,
old age must follow. If it is a youthful thought,
a perennial young-life thought, a thought of
usefulness and helpfulness, the body must
correspond. Old age begins in the mind. The
expression of age in the body is the harvest
of old-age ideas which have been planted in
the mind. We see others about our age begin-
ning to decline and show marks of decrepitude,
and we imagine it is about time for us to show
the same signs. Ultimately we do show them,
because we think they are inevitable. But they
are only inevitable because of our old-age
mental attitude and race habit beliefs.

If we actually refuse to grow old ; if we
insist on holding the youthful ideal and the
young, hopeful, buoyant thought, the old-age
ear-marks will not show themselves.

The elixir of youth lies in the mind or no-
where. You cannot be young by trying to
appear so, by dressing youthfully. You must
first get rid of the last vestige of thought that
you are aging. As long as that is in the mind,
cosmetics and youthful dress will amount
to very little in changing your appearance.
The conviction must first be changed; the

136 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

thought which has produced the aging con-
dition must be reversed.

If we can only establish the perpetual-youth
mental attitude, so that we feel young, we have
won half the battle against old age. Be sure of
this, that whatever you feel regarding your
age will be expressed in your body.

It is a great aid to the perpetuation of
youth to learn to feel young, however long
we may have lived, because the body ex-
presses the habitual feeling, habitual thought.
Nothing in the world will make us look young
as long as we are convinced that we are
aging.

Nothing else more effectually retards age
than the keeping in mind the bright, cheerful,
optimistic, hopeful, buoyant picture of youth,
in all its splendor, magnificence ; the picture
of the glories which belong to youth — youth-
ful dreams, ideals, hopes, and all the qualities
which belong to young life.

One great trouble with us is that our im-
aginations age prematurely. The hard, exact-
ing conditions of our modern, strenuous life
tend to harden and dry up the brain and
nerve cells, and thus seriously injure the
power of the imagination, which should be
kept fresh, buoyant, elastic. The average rou-

WHY GROW OLD? 137

tine habit of modern business life tends to
destroy the flexibility, the delicacy, the sensi-
tiveness, the exquisite fineness of the percep-
tive faculties.

C People who take life too seriously, who
seem to think everything depends upon their
own individual efforts, whose lives are one
continuous grind in living-getting, have a
hard expression, their thought outpictures
itself in their faces. These people dry up
early in life, become wrinkled ; their tissues
become as hard as their thought. )

The arbitrary, domineering, overbearing
mind also tends to age the body prematurely,
because the thinking is hard, strained, ab-
normal.

People who live on the sunny and beautiful
side of life, who cultivate serenity, do not age
nearly so rapidly as do those who live on the
shady, the dark side.

Another reason why so many people age
prematurely is because they cease to grow.
It is a lamentable fact that multitudes of men
seem incapable of receiving or accepting new
ideas after they have reached middle age.
Many of them, after they have reached the
age of forty or fifty, come to a standstill in
their mental reaching out.

138 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

Don't think that you must " begin to take
in sail," to stop growing", stop progressing,
just because you have gotten along in years.
By this method of reasoning you will decline
rapidly. Never allow yourself to get out of
the habit of being young. Do not say that
you cannot do this or that as you once did.
Live the life that belongs to youth. Do not be
afraid of being a boy or girl again in spirit,
no matter how many years you have lived.
Carry yourself so that you will not suggest
old age in any of its phases. Remember it is
the stale mind, the stale mentality, that ages
the body. Keep growing, keep interested in
everything about you.

It has been shown that the conviction that
one is going to die at about a certain time, a
certain age, tends to bring about the expected
dissolution by strangling the life processes.

If you wish to retain your youth, forget
unpleasant experiences, disagreeable inci-
dents. A lady eighty years old was recently
asked how she managed to keep herself so
youthful. She replied : " I know how to for-
get disagreeable things."

No one can remain youthful who does not
continue to grow, and no one can keep grow-
ing who does not keep alive his interest in the

WHY GROW OLD? 139

great world about him. We are so constituted
that we draw a large part of our nourishment
from others. No man can isolate himself, can
cut himself off from his fellows, without
shrinking in his mental stature. The mind that
is not constantly reaching out for the new, as
well as keeping in touch with the old, soon
reaches its limit of growth.

Nothing else is easier than for a man to age.
All he has to do is to think he is growing old ;
to expect it, to fear it, and prepare for it; to
compare himself with others of the same age
who are prematurely old and to assume that
he is like them.

To think constantly of the " end," to plan
for death, to prepare and provide for declin-
ing years, is simply to acknowledge that your
powers are waning, that you are losing your
grip upon life. Such thinking tends to weaken
your hold upon the life principle, and your
body gradually corresponds with your con-
viction.

The very belief that our powers are waning ;
the consciousness that we are losing strength,
that our vitality is lessening; the conviction
that old age is settling upon us and that our
life forces are gradually ebbing away, has a
blighting, shrivelling influence upon the mental

140 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

faculties and functions ; the whole character
deteriorates under this old-age belief.

The result is that we do not use or develop
the age-resisting forces within us. The refresh-
ening, renewing, resisting powers of the body
are so reduced and impaired by the conviction
that we are getting on in years and cannot
stand what we once could, that we become an
easy prey to disease and all sorts of physical
infirmities.

The mental attitude has everything to do
with the hastening or the retarding of the old-
age condition.

Dr. Metchnikoff, of the Pasteur Institute in
Paris, says that men should live at least one
hundred and twenty years. There is no doubt
that, as a race, we shorten our lives very ma-
terially through our false thinking, our bad
living, and our old-age convictions.

A few years ago the London Lancet, the
highest medical authority in the world, gave
a splendid illustration of the power of the mind
to keep the body young. A young woman, de-
serted by her lover, became insane. She lost
all consciousness of the passing of time. She
believed her lover would return, and for years
she stood daily before her window watching
for him. When over seventy years of age,

WHY GROW OLD? 141

some Americans, including physicians, who
saw her, thought she was not over twenty.
She did not have a single gray hair, and
no wrinkles or other signs of age were vis-
ible. Her skin was as fair and smooth as a
young girl's. She did not age because she be-
lieved she was still a girl. She did not count
her birthdays or worry because she was get-
ting along in years. She was thoroughly con-
vinced that she was still living in the very time
that her lover left her. This mental belief con-
trolled her physical condition. She was just as
old as she thought she zvas. Her conviction
outpictured itself in her body and kept it
youthful.

It is an insult to your Creator that your brain
should begin to ossify, that your mental pow-
ers should begin to decline when you have
only reached the half-century milestone. You
ought then to be in your youth. What has the
appearance of old age to do with youth ? What
have gray hair, wrinkles, and other evidences
of age to do with youth? Mental power
should constantly increase. There should be no
decline in years. Increasing wisdom and power
should be the only signs that you have lived
long, that you have been many years on this
planet. Strength, beauty, magnificence, supe-

142 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

riority, not weakness, uselessness, decrepitude,
should characterize a man who has Uved long.

As long as you hold the conviction that you
are sixty, you will look it. Your thought will
outpicture itself in your face, in your whole
appearance. If you hold the old-age ideal, the
old-age conviction, your expression must cor-
respond. The body is the bulletin board of the
mind.

On the other hand, if you think of yourself
as perpetually young, vigorous, robust, and
buoyant, because every cell in the body is con-
stantly being renewed, decrepitude will not
get hold of you.

If you would retain your youth, you must
avoid the enemies of youth, and there are no
greater enemies than the convictions of age
and the gradual loss of interest in things,
especially in youthful amusements and in the
young life about you. When you are no
longer interested in the hopes and ambitions
of young people ; when you decHne to enter
into their sports, to romp and play with chil-
dren, you confess in effect that you are grow-
ing old ; that you are beginning to harden ;
that your youthful spirits are drying up, and
that the juices of your younger days are
evaporating. Nothing helps more to the per-

WHY GROW OLD? 143

petuation of youth than much association with
the young.

A man quite advanced in years was asked
not long ago how he retained such a youthful
appearance in spite of his age. He said that
he had been the principal of a high school for
over thirty years ; that he loved to enter into
the life and sports of the young people and
to be one of them in their ambitions and in-
terests. This, he said, had kept his mind cen-
tred on youth, progress, and abounding life,
and the old-age thought had had no room for
entrance.

There is not even a suggestion of age in
this man's conversation or ideas, and there is
a life, a buoyancy about him which is won-
derfully refreshing.

There must be a constant activity in the
mind that would not age. " Keep growing or
die " is nature's motto, a motto written all
over everything in the universe.

Hold stoutly to the conviction that it is
natural and right for you to remain young.
Constantly repeat to yourself that it is wrong,
wicked for you to grow old in appearance;
that weakness and decrepitude could not have
l)ecn in the Creator's plan for the man made
in His image of perfection ; that it nuist have

144 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

been acquired — the result of wrong race and
individual training and thinking.

Constantly affirm : " I am always well, al-
ways young, I cannot grow old except by
producing the old-age conditions through my
thought. The Creator intended me for con-
tinual growth, perpetual advancement and
betterment, and I am not going to allow my-
self to be cheated out of my birthright of
perennial youth.'M

No matter if people do say to you : " You
are getting along in years," " You are begin-
ning to show signs of age." Just deny these
appearances. Say to yourself : " Principle does
not age, Truth does not grow old. I am
Principle. I am Truth."

Never go to sleep with the old-age picture
or thought in your mind. It is of the utmost
importance to make yourself feel yovmg at
night; to erase all signs, convictions, and
feelings of age ; to throw aside every care and
worry that would carve its image on your
brain and express itself in your face. The
worrying mind actually generates calcareous
matter in the brain and hardens the cells.

You should fall asleep holding those desires
and ideals uppermost in the mind which are
dearest to you ; which you are the most anxious

WHY GROW OLD? 145

to realize. As the mind continues to work
during sleep, these desires and ideals are thus
intensified and increased. It is well known that
impure thoughts and desires work terrible
havoc then. Purity of thought, loftiness of
purpose, the highest possible aims, should
dominate the mind when you fall asleep.

When you first wake in the morning, espe-
cially if you have reached middle life or later,
picture the youthful qualities as vividly as pos-
sible. Say to yourself : " I am young, always
young — strong — buo}'ant. I cannot grow old
and decrepit, because in the truth of my being
I am divine, and Divine Principle cannot age.
It is only the negative in me, the unreality,
that can take on the appearance of age."

The great thing is to make the mind cre-
ate the youth pattern instead of the old-age
pattern. As the sculptor follows the model
which he holds in the mind, so the life proc-
esses reproduce in the body the pattern which
is in our thought, our conviction.

We must get rid of the idea embedded in
our very nature that the longer we live, the
more experiences we have, the more work we
do, the more inevitably we wear out and be-
come old, decrepit, and useless. We must learn
that living, acting, experiencing, should not

146 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

exhaust life but create more life. It is a law
that action increases force. Where, then, did
the idea come from that man should wear
out through action?

C As a matter of fact. Nature has bestowed
upon us perpetual youth, the power of per-
petual renewal. There is not a single cell in
our bodies that can possibly become old ; the
body is constantly being made new through
cell-renewal ; and as the cells of these parts of
the body that are most active are renewed
oftenest, it must follow that the age-producing
process is largely artificial and unnatural.

Physiologists tell us that the tissue cells of
some muscles are renewed every few hours,
others every few days or weeks. The cells of
the bone tissues are slower of renewal, but
some authorities estimate that eighty or ninety
per cent of all the cells in the body of a person
of ordinary activity are entirely renewed in
from six to twelve months.

Scientists have proved beyond question that
the chemistry of the body has everything to
do with the perpetuation of youthful condi-
tions. Every discordant thought produces a
chemical change in the cells, introducing for-
eign substances and causing reaction which is
injurious to the integrity of the cells.

WHY GROW OLD? 147

The impression of age is thus made upon
new cells. This impression is the thought. If
the thought is old, the age impress appears
upon the cells. If the spirit of youth dominates
the thought, the impression upon the cells is
youthful. In other words, the processes which
result in age cannot possibly operate except
through the mind, and the billions of cells
composing the body are instantly affected by
every thought that passes through the brain.

Putting old thoughts into a new set of cells
is like putting old wine into new bottles. They
don't agree ; they are natural enemies. The re-
sult is that two-year-old cells are made to look
fifty, sixty, or more years old, according to
the thought. It is marvellous hozu quickly old
thoughts can make new cells appear old.

All discordant and antagonistic thought
materially interferes with the laws of recon-
struction and self-renewal going on in the
body, and the great thing is, therefore, to form
thought habits which will harmonize with this
law of rejuvenation — perpetual renewal.

Hard, selfish, worry, and fear thoughts,
and vicious habits of all kinds, produce the
appearance of age and hasten its coming.

Pessimism is one of the worst enemies of
youth. The pessimist ages prematurely be-

148 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

cause his mind dwells upon the black, dis-
cordant, and diseased side of things. The pes-
simist does not progress, does not face toward
youth ; he goes backward, and this retrogres-
sion is fatal to youthful conditions. Brightness,
cheerfulness, hopefulness characterize youth.

Everything that is abnormal tends to pro-
duce old-age conditions. No one can remain
young, no matter to what expedients he may
resort to enable him to erase the marks of
age, who worries and indulges in excessive
passion. The mental processes produce all
sorts of things, good or bad, according to the
pattern in the mind.

Selfishness is abnormal and tends to harden
and dry up the brain and nerve cells. We are
so constituted that we must be good to be
happy, and happiness spells youthfulness.
Selfishness is an enemy of happiness because
it violates the very fundamental principle of
our being — justice, fairness. We protest
against it, we instinctively despise and think
less of ourselves for practising it. It does not
tend to produce health, harmony, or a sense
of well-being, because it does not harmonize
with the fundamental principle of our being.

With many people, old age is a perpetual
horror, which destroys comfort and happiness

WHY GROW OLD? 149

and makes life a tragedy, which, but for it,
might have been a perpetual joy.

Many wealthy people do not really enjoy
their possessions because of that awful con-
sciousness that they may at any moment be
forced to leave everything.

Discordant thought of every kind tends to
shorten life.

As long as you think old, hard, grasping,
envious thoughts, nothing in the world can
keep you from growing old. As long as you
harbor these enemies of youth, you cannot re-
main in a youthful condition. New thoughts
create new life ; old thoughts — canned, stereo-
typed thoughts — are injurious to growth, and
anything which stops growth helps the aging
processes.

Whatever thought dominates the mind at
any time is constantly modifying, changing
the life ideal, so that every suggestion that
comes into the mind from any source is
registered in the cell life, etched in the char-
acter, and outpictured in the expression and
appearance. If the ideal of continual youth,
of a body in a state of perpetual rejuvenation,
dominates the mind, it neutralizes the aging
processes. All of the body follows the dominat-
ing thought, motive and feeling, and takes on

ISO PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

its expression. For example, a man who is
constantly worrying, fretting, a victim of
fear, cannot possibly help outpicturing this
condition in his body. Nothing in the world
can counteract this hardening, aging, ossify-
ing process but a complete reversal of the
thought, so that the opposite ideas dominate.
The effect of the mind on the body is always
absolutely scientific. It follows an inexorable
law.

There is a power of health latent in every
cell of the body which would always keep
the cell in harmony and preserve its integrity
if the thought were right. This latent power
of health in the cell can be so developed by
right thinking and living as to retard very
materially the aging processes.

One of the most effective means of develop-
ing it is to keep cheerful and optimistic. As
long as the mind faces the sun of life it will
cast no shadow before it.

Hold ever before you, like a beacon light,
the youth ideal — strength, buoyancy, hopeful-
ness, expectancy. Hold persistently to the
thought that your body is the last two years'
product; that there may not be in it a single
cell more than a year and a half old ; that it is
constantly young because it is perpetually be-

WHY GROW OLD? 151

ing renewed and that, therefore, it ought to
look fresh and youthful.

Constantly say to yourself: "If Nature
makes me a new body every few months, com-
paratively, if the billions of tissue cells are
being perpetually renewed, if the oldest of
these cells are, perhaps, rarely, if ever, more
than two years old, why should they appear
to be sixty or seventy-five ? " A two-year-old
cell could not look like a seventy-year-old cell
of its own accord, but we know from experi-
ence that the old-age conviction can make
these youthful cells look very old. If the body
is always young, it should always look young ;
and it would if we did not make it look old
by stamping old age upon it. We Americans
seem very adept in putting the old-age stamp
upon new tissue cells. Yet it is just as easy to
form the youthful-thought habit as the old-
age-thought habit.

If you would keep young, you must learn
the secret of self-rejuvenation, self-refresh-
ment, self-renewal, in your thought, in your
work. Hard thoughts, too serious thoughts,
mental confusion, excitement, worry, anxiety,
jealousy, the indulgence of explosive passions,
all tend to shorten life.

You will find a wonderful rejuvenating

152 PEACE, PO\VER, AND PLENTY

power in the cultivation of faith in the im-
mortal Principle of health in every atom of
your being. We are all conscious that there
is something in us which is never sick and
which never dies, something which connects
us "with the Divine. There is a wonderful heal-
ing influence in holding the consciousness of
this great truth.

Some people are so constituted that they
perpetually renew themselves. They do not
seem to get tired or weary of their tasks, be-
cause their minds are constantly refreshing
themselves. They are self-lubricators, self-re-
newers. To keep from aging, we must keep
the picture of youth in all its beauty and glory
impressed upon the mind. It is impossible to
appear youthful, to be young, unless we feel
young.

Without realizing it, most people are using
the old-age thought as a chisel to cut a little
deeper the wrinkles. Their old-age thought is
stamping itself upon the new cells only a few
months old, so that they very soon look to be
forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years old.

Never allow yourself to think of yourself
as growing old. Constantly affirm, if you feel
yourself aging, " I am young because I am
perpetually being renewed ; my life comes new

WHY GROW OLD? 153

every moment from the Infinite Source of life.
I am new every morning and fresh every
evening because I live, move, and have my
being in Him who is the Source of all life."
Not only affirm this mentally, but verbally
when you can. Make this picture of perpetual
renewal, constant refreshment, re-creation, so
vivid, that you will feel the thrill of youthful
renewal through your entire system. Under
no circumstances allow the old-age thought
and suggestion to remain in the mind. Re-
member that it is what you feel, what you are
convinced of, that will be outpictured in your
body. If you think you are aging, if you walk,
talk, dress, and act like an old person, these
conditions will be outpictured in your expres-
sion, face, manner, and body generally.

Youthful thought should be a life habit.

Cling to the thought that the truth of your
being can never age, because it is Divine Prin-
ciple. Picture the cells of the body being con-
stantly made over. Hold this perpetual-re-
newal picture in your mind, and the old-age
thought, the old-age conviction will become
inoperative.

The new youth-thought habit will drive out
the old-age-thought habit. If you can only feel
your whole body being perpetually made over,

154 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

constantly renewed, you will keep the body
young, fresh.

There is a tremendous youth - retaining
power in holding high ideals and lofty senti-
ments. The spirit cannot grow old while one
is constantly aspiring to something better,
higher, nobler. Employment which develops
the higher self ; the frequent dwelHng upon
lofty themes and high purposes — all are
powerful preservatives of youth. It is senility
of the soul that makes people old.

The living of life should be a perpetual joy.
Youth and joy are synonymous. If we do not
enjoy life, if we do not feel that it is a de-
light to be alive, if we do not look upon our
work as a grand privilege, we shall age pre-
maturely.

Live always in a happy mental attitude.
Live in the ideal, and the aging processes
cannot get hold of you. It is the ideal that
keeps one young. When we think of age, we
think of weakness, decrepitude, imperfection;
we do not think of wholeness, vigor. Every
time you think of yourself make a vivid men-
tal picture of your ideal self as the very pic-
ture of youth, of health and vigor. Think
health. Feel the spirit of youth and hope surg-
ing through your body. Form the most per-

- WHY GROW OLD? 155

feet picture of physical manhood or woman-
hood that is possible to the human mind.

The elixir of youth which alchemists sought
so long in chemicals, we find lies in ourselves.
The secret is in our own mentality. Perpetual
rejuvenation is possible only by right think-
ing. We look as old as we think and feel be-
cause it is thought and feeling that change
our appearance.

Let us put beauty into our lives by thinking
beautiful thoughts, building beautiful ideals,
and picturing beautiful things in our imagina-
tion.

I know of no remedy for old-age conditions
so powerful as love — love for our work, love
for our fellow-men, love for everything.

It is the most powerful life-renewer, re-
freshener, re-creator, known. Love awakens
the noblest sentiments, the finest sensibilities,
the most exquisite qualities in man.

Try to find and live in the soul of things,
to see the best in everybody. When you think
of a person, hold in your mind the ideal of that
person — that which God meant him to be —
not the deformed, weak, ignorant creature
which vice and wrong living may have made.
This habit of refusing to see anything but the
ideal will not only be a wonderful help to

156 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

others, but also to yourself. Refuse to see
deformity or weakness anywhere, but hold per-
sistently your highest ideals. Other things be-
ing equal, it is the cleanest, purest mind that
lives longest.

Harmony, peace, and serenity are absolutely
necessary to perpetuate youthful conditions.
All discord, all unbalanced mental operations,
tend to produce aging conditions. The con-
templation of the eternal verities enriches the
ideals and freshens life because it destroys
fear, uncertainty, and worry by adding assur-
ance and certainty to life.

Old-age conditions can only exist in cells
which have become deteriorated and hardened
by wrong thinking and vicious living. Unre-
strained passion or fits of temper burn out the
cells very rapidly.

People who are very useful, who are doing
their work grandly, growing vigorously, re-
tain their youthful appearance. We can form
the habit of staying young just as well as the
habit of growing old.

Increasing power and wisdom ought to be
the only sign of our long continuance on this
earth. We ought to do our best work after
fifty, or even after sixty or seventy ; and if the
brain is kept active, fresh, and young, and the

WHY GROW OLD? 157

brain cells are not ruined by too serious a life,
by worry, fear, selfishness, or disease, the
mind will constantly increase in vigor and
power.

If we are convinced that the life processes
can perpetuate youth instead of age, they will
obey the command. The fact that man's sin,
his ignorance of true living, made the three-
score years, with the possible addition of ten
more, the average limit of life centuries ago,
is no reason why any one in this man-emanci-
pating age should narrow himself to this limit.

An all-wise and benevolent Creator could
not make us with such a great yearning for
long life, a longing to remain young, with-
out any possibility of realizing it. The very
fact of this universal protest in all human be-
ings against the enormous disproportion be-
tween the magnitude of our mission upon earth
and the shortness of the time and the meagre-
ness of the opportunities for carrying it out ;
the universal yearning for longevity ; and all
analogy in the animal kingdom, all point to
the fact that man was not only intended for a
much longer life, but also for a much greater
freedom from the present old-age weaknesses
and handicaps.

There is not the slightest indication in the

158 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

marvellous mechanism of man that he was
intended to become weak, crippled, and use-
less after a comparatively few years. Instead,
all the indications are toward progress into a
larger, completer, fuller manhood, greater
power. A dwarfed, weak, useless man was
never in the Creator's plan. Retrogression is
contrary to all principle and law. Progress,
perpetual enlargement, growth, are the truth
of man. The Creator never made anything for
retrogression ; it is contrary to the very nature
of Deity. '' Onward and upward " is written
upon every atom in the universe. Imagine the
Creator fashioning a man in his own likeness
for only a few years of activity and growth,
and then — retrogression, crippled helplessness !
There is nothing of God in this picture. What-
ever the Deity makes bears the stamp of per-
petual progress, everlasting growth. There is
no going backward in his plans, everything
moves forward to one eternal divine purpose.
A decrepit, helpless old man or woman is a
burlesque of the human being God made. His
image does not deteriorate or go backward, but
moves forever onward, eternally upward. If
human beings could only once grasp this idea,
that the reality of them is divine, and that
divinity does not go backward or grow old.

WHY GROW OLD? 159

they would lose all sense of fear and worry,
all enemies of their progress and happiness
would slink away, and the aging processes
would cease.

The coming man will not grow old. Per-
petual youth is his destiny.
{'The time will come when people will look
upon old age as an unreality, a negative, a
mere phantom of the real man. The rose that
fades is not the real rose. The real rose is the
ideal — the idea which pushes out a new one
every time we pluck the one that fades.

The real man is God's ideal, and in the light
of the new day that is dawning man will
glimpse that perfect ideal. He will know the
truth, and the truth will make him free. In
that new day he will cast from him the ham-
pering, age-worn vestures woven in the
thought-loom of mankind through the cen-
turies, and stand erect — the perfect being, the
ideal man.

X. THE MIRACLE OF SELF-
CONFIDENCE

X. THE MIRACLE OF SELF-
CONFIDENCE

If there be a faith that can remove mountains, it is
faith in one's own power.— Marie Ebister-Eschen-

BACH.

"Instead of being the victims of fate, we can alter our
fate, and largely determine what it shall be."

"Your ideal is a prophecy of what you shall at last
unveil."

HY," asked Mirabeau, "should
we call ourselves men, unless
it be to succeed in everything
everywhere ? " Nothing else
will so nerve you to accom-
plish great things as to be-
lieve in your own greatness,
in your own marvellous possibilities. Count
that man an enemy who shakes your faith in
yourself, in your ability to do the thing you
have set your heart upon doing, for when
your confidence is gone, your power is gone.
Your achievement will never rise higher than
your self- faith. It would be as reasonable for
Napoleon to have expected to get his army
over the Alps by sitting down and declaring
that the undertaking was too great for him,
as for you to hope to achieve anything sig-

163

i64 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

nificant in life while harboring grave doubts
and fears as to your ability.

The miracles of civilization have been per-
formed by men and women of great self-con-
fidence, who had unwavering faith in their
power to accomplish the tasks they undertook.
The race would have been centuries behind
what it is to-day had it not been for their grit,
their determination, their persistence in find-
ing and making real the thing they believed
in and which the world often denounced as
chimerical or impossible.

There is no law by which you can achieve
success in anything without expecting it, de-
manding it, assuming it. There must be a
strong, firm self -faith first, or the thing will
never come. There is no room for chance in
God's world of system and supreme order.
Everything must have not only a cause, but
a sufficient cause — a cause as large as the
result. A stream cannot rise higher than its
source. A great success must have a great
source in expectation, in self-confidence, and
in persistent endeavor to attain it. No matter
how great the ability, how large the genius,
or how splendid the education, the achieve-
ment will never rise higher than the con-
fidence. He can who thinks he can, and he

SELF-CONFIDENXE 165

can't who thinks he can't. This is an inexor-
able, indisputable law.

' "It does not matter what other people think
/^of you, of your plans, or of your aims. No
^matter if they call you a visionary, a crank,
or a dreamer; you must believe in yourself.
You forsake yourself when you lose your con-
fidence. Never allow anybody or any misfor-
tune to shake your belief in yourself. You may
lose your property, your health, your reputa-
tion, other peoples' confidence, even ; but there
is always hope for you so long as you keep
a firm faith in yourself. If you never lose that,
but keep pushing on, the world will, sooner or
later, make way for you.

A soldier once took a message to Napoleon
in such great haste that the horse he rode
dropped dead before he delivered the paper.
Napoleon dictated his answer and, handing it
to the messenger, ordered him to mount his
own horse and deliver it with all possible
speed.

The messenger looked at the magnificent
animal, with its superb trappings, and said,
" Nay, General, but this is too gorgeous, too
magnificent for a common soldier."

Napoleon said, " Nothing is too good or too
magnificent for a French soldier."

i66 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

The world is full of people like this poor
French soldier, who think that what others
have is too good for them ; that it does not
fit their humble condition; that they are not
expected to have as good things as those who
are " more favored." They do not realize how
they weaken themselves by this mental attitude
of self-depreciation or self-effacement. They
do not claim enough, expect enough, or de-
mand enough of themselves.

You will never become a giant if you only
make a pygmy's claim for yourself; if you
only expect a pygmy's part. There is no law
which can cause a pygmy's thinking to pro-
duce a giant. The statue follows the model.
The model is the inward vision.

Most people have been educated to think
that it was not intended they should have the
best there is in the world ; that the good and
the beautiful things of life were not designed
for them, but were reserved for those espe-
cially favored by fortune. They have grown
up under this conviction of their inferiority,
and of course they will be inferior until they
claim superiority as their birthright. A vast
number of men and women who are really
capable of doing great things, do small things,
live mediocre lives, because they do not expect

SELF-CONFIDENCE 167

or demand enough of themselves. They do not
know how to call out their best.

One reason why the hviman race as a whole
has not measured up to its possibilities, to its
promise ; one reason why we see everywhere
splendid ability doing the work of mediocrity ;
is because people do not think half enough of
themselves. We do not realise our divinity;
that -cve are a part of the great causation prin-
ciple of the universe.

We do not think highly enough of our
superb birthright, nor comprehend to what
heights of sublimity we were intended and
expected to rise, nor to what extent we can
really be masters of ourselves. We fail to see
that we can control our own destiny ; make
ourselves do whatever is possible ; make our-
selves become whatever we long to be.

"If we choose to be no more than clods of
clay," says Marie Corelli, " then we shall be
used as clods of clay for braver feet to tread
on."

The persistent thought that you are not as
good as others, that you are a weak, ineffect-
ive being, will lower your whole standard of
life and paralyze your ability.

A man who is self-reliant, positive, optimis-
tic, and undertakes his work with the as-

i68 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

surance of success, magnetizes conditions. He
draws to himself the literal fulfillment of the
promise, " For unto every one that hath shall
be given, and he shall have abundance."

There is everything in assuming the part
we wish to play, and playing it royally. If you
are ambitious to do big things, you must make
a large programme for yourself, and assume
the part it demands.

There is something in the atmosphere of
the man who has a large and true estimate of
himself, who believes that he is going to win
out ; something in his very appearance that
wins half the battle before a blow is struck.
Things get out of the way of the vigorous,
affirmative man, which are always tripping the
self-depreciating, negative man.

We often hear it said of a man, " Every-
thing he undertakes succeeds," or " Every-
thing he touches turns to gold." By the force
of his character and the creative power of his
thought, such a man wrings success from the
most adverse circumstances. Confidence be-
gets confidence. A man who carries in his very
presence an air of victory, radiates assurance,
and imparts to others confidence that he can
do the thing he attempts. As time goes on, he
is reenforced not only by the power of his own

SELF-CONFIDENCE 169

thought, but also by that of all who know him.
His friends and acquaintances affirm and re-
affirm his ability to succeed, and make each
successive triumph easier of achievement than
its predecessor. His self-poise, assurance, con-
fidence and ability increase in a direct ratio
to the number of his achievements. As the
savage Indian thought that the power of every
enemy he conquered entered into himself, so
in reality does every conquest in war, in peace-
ful industry, in commerce, in invention, in
science, or in art add to the conqueror's power
to do the next thing.

Set the mind toward the thing you would
accomplish so resolutely, so definitely, and with
such vigorous determination, and put so much
grit into your resolution, that nothing on earth
can turn you from your purpose until you
attain it.

This very assertion of superiority, the as-
sumption of power, the affirmation of belief
in yourself, the mental attitude that claims
success as an inalienable birthright, will
strengthen the whole man and give power to
a combination of faculties which doubt, fear,
and a lack of confidence undermine.

Confidence is the Napoleon of the mental
army. It doubles and trebles the power of all

I70 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

the other faculties. The whole mental army
waits until confidence leads the way.

Even a race horse cannot win the prize after
it has once lost confidence in itself. Courage,
born of self-confidence, is the prod which
brings out the last ounce of reserve force.

The reason why so many men fail is be-
cause they do not commit themselves with a
determination to win at any cost. They do not
have that superb confidence in themselves
which never looks back; which burns all
bridges behind it. There is just uncertainty
enough as to whether they will succeed to take
the edge off their effort, and it is just this
little difference between doing pretty well and
flinging all oneself, all his power, into his
career, that makes the difference between
mediocrity and a grand achievement.

If you doubt your ability to do what you set
out to do ; if you think that others are better
fitted to do it than you ; if you fear to let your-
self out and take chances ; if you lack bold-
ness ; if you have a timid, shrinking nature ;
if the negatives preponderate in your vocabu-
lary ; if you think that you lack positiveness,
initiative, aggressiveness, ability; you can
never win anything very great until you
change your whole mental attitude and learn

SELF-CONFIDENCE 171

to have great faith in yourself. Fear, doubt,
and timidity must be turned out of your mind. ^

Your own mental picture of yourself is a '"'
good measure of yourself and your possibih-
ties. If there is no out-reach to your mind, no
spirit of daring, no firm self-faith, you will
never acccJmplish much.

A man's confidence measures the height of
his possibilities. A stream cannot rise higher
than its fountain head.

Power is largely a question of strong,
vigorous, perpetual thinking along the line of
the ambition, parallel with the aim — the great
life purpose. Here is where potver originates.

The deed must first live in the thought or it
will never be a reality ; and a strong, vigorous
concept of the thing we want to do is a tre-
mendous initial step. A thought that is timidly
born will be timidly executed. There must be
vigor of conception or an indifferent execu-
tion.

All the greatest achievements in the world
began in longing — in dreamings and hopings
which for a time were nursed in despair, with
no light in sight. This longing kept the cour-
age up and made self-sacrifice easier until
the thing dreamed of — the mental vision — was
realized.

172 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

" According to your faith be it unto you."
Our faith is a very good measure of what we
get out of Hfe. The man of weak faith gets
little ; the man of mighty faith gets much.

The very intensity of your confidence in
your ability to do the thing you attempt, is
definitely related to the degree of your achieve-
ment.

If we were to analyze the marvellous suc-
cesses of many of our self-made men, we
should find that when they first started out in
active life they held the confident, vigorous,
persistent thought of and belief in their ability
to accomplish what they had undertaken.
Their mental attitude was set so stubbornly
toward their goal that the doubts and fears
which dog and hinder and frighten the man
who holds a low estimate of himself, who asks,
demands, and expects but little, of or for him-
self, got out of their path, and the world made
way for them.

We are very apt to think of men who have
been unusually successful in any line as great-
ly favored by fortune; and we try to account
for it in all sorts of ways but the right one. The
fact is tliat their success represents their ex-
pectations of themselves — the sum of their
creative, positive, habitual thinking. It is their

SELF-CONFIDENCE 173

mental attitude outpictured and made tangible
in their environment. They have wrought —
created — what they have and what they are
out of their constructive thought and their un-
quenchable faith in themselves.

We must not only believe we can succeed,
but we must believe it with all our hearts.

We must have a positive conviction that we
can attain success.

No lukewarm energy or indifferent ambi-
tion ever accomplished anything. There must
be vigor in our expectation, in our faith, in
our determination, in our endeavor. We must
resolve with the energy that does things.

Not only must the desire for the thing we
long for be kept uppermost, but there must
be strongly concentrated intensity of effort to
attain our object.

As it is the fierceness of the heat that melts
the iron ore and makes it possible to weld it
or mold it into shape ; as it is the intensity
of the electrical force that dissolves the dia-
mond— the hardest known substance; so it is
the concentrated aim, the invincible purpose,
that wins success. Nothing was ever accom-
plished by a half-hearted desire.

Many people make a very poor showing in
life, because there is no vim, no vigor in their

174 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

efforts. Their resolutions are spineless ; there
is no backbone in their endeavor — no grit in
their ambition.

One must have that determination which
never looks back and which knows no defeat ;
that resolution which burns all bridges behind
it and is willing to risk everything upon the
effort. When a man ceases to believe in him-
self— gives up the fight — you cannot do much
for him except to try to restore what he has
lost — his self-faith — and to get out of his head
the idea that there is a fate which tosses him
hither and thither, a mysterious destiny which
decides things whether he will or not. You
cannot do much with him until he compre-
hends that he is bigger than any fate ; that he
has within himself a power mightier than any
force outside of him.

One reason why the careers of most of us
are so pinched and narrow, is because we do
not have a large faith in ourselves and in our
power to accomplish. We are held back by
too much caution. We are timid about ventur-
ing. We are not bold enough.

Whatever we long for, yearn for, struggle
for, and hold persistently in the mind, we tend
to become just in exact proportion to the in-
tensity and persistence of the thought. We

SELF-CONFIDENCE 175

think ourselves into smallness, into inferiority
by thinking downward. We ought to think up-
ward, then we would reach the heights where
superiority dwells. The man whose mind is
set firmly toward achievement does not appro-
priate success, he is success.

Self-confidence is not egotism. It is knowl-
edge, and it comes from the consciousness of
possessing the ability requisite for what one
undertakes. Civilization to-day rests upon self-
confidence.

A firm self-faith helps a man to project
himself with a force that is almost irresistible.
A balancer, a doubter, has no projectile power.
If he starts at all, he moves with uncertainty.
There is no vigor in his initiative, no positive-
ness in his energy.

There is a great difference between a man
who thinks that " perhaps " he can do, or who
" will try " to do a thing, and a man who
" knows " he can do it, who is " bound " to
do it ; who feels within himself a pulsating
power, an irresistible force, equal to any
emergency.

This difference between uncertainty and
certainty, between vacillation and decision,
between the man who wavers and the man
who decides things, between " I hope to " and

176 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

" I can," between " I'll try " and " I will "—
this little difference measures the distance be-
tween weakness and power, between medioc-
rity and excellence, between commonness and
superiority.

The man who does things must be able to
project himself with a mighty force, to fling
the whole weight of his being into his work,
ever gathering momentum against the obstacles
which confront him ; every issue must be met
wholly, unhesitatingly. He cannot do this with
a wavering, doubting, unstable mind.

The fact that a man believes implicitly that
he can do what may seem impossible or very
difiicult to others, shows that there is some-
thing within him that makes him equal to the
work he has undertaken.

Faith unites man with the Infinite, and no
one can accomplish great things in life unless
he works in oneness with the Infinite. When
a man lives so near to the Supreme that the
divine Presence is felt all the time, then he
is in a position to express power.

There is nothing which will multiply one's
ability like self-faith. It can make a one-talent
man a success, while a ten-talent man without
it would fail.

Faith walks on the mountain tops, hence its

SELF-CONFIDENCE 177

superior vision. It sees what is invisible to
those who follow.

It was the sustaining power of a mighty
self-faith that enabled Columbus to bear the
jeers and imputations of the Spanish cabinet;
that sustained him when his sailors were in
mutiny and he was at their mercy in a little
vessel on an unknown sea; that enabled him
to hold steadily to his purpose, entering in his
diary day after day — " This day we sailed
west, which was our course."

It was this self- faith which gave courage and
determination to Fulton to attempt his first trip
up the Hudson in the Clermont, before thou-
sands of his fellow citizens, who had gath-
ered to howl and jeer at his expected fail-
ure. He believed he could do the thing he
attempted though the whole world was against
him.

What miracles self-confidence has wrought!
What impossible deeds it has helped to per-
form ! It took Dewey past cannons, torpedoes,
and mines to victory at Manila Bay ; it carried
Farragut, lashed to the rigging, past the de-
fenses of the enemy in Mobile Bay ; it led
Nelson and Grant to victory ; it has been
the great tonic in the world of invention,
discovery, and art; it has won a thousand

178 , PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

triumphs in war and science which were
deemed impossible by doubters and the faint-
hearted.

Self-faith has been the miracle-worker of
the ages. It has enabled the inventor and the
discoverer to go on and on amidst troubles
and trials which otherwise would have utterly
disheartened them. It has held innumerable
heroes to their tasks until the glorious deeds
were accomplished.

The only inferiority in us is what we put
into ourselves. If only we better understood
our divinity we should all have this larger
faith which is the distinction of the brave soul.
We think ourselves into smallness. Were we
to think upward we should reach the heights
where superiority dwells.

Perhaps there is no other one thing which
keeps so many people back as their low es-
timate of themselves. They are more handi-
capped by their limiting thought, by their
foolish convictions of inefficiency, than by al-
most anything else, for there is no power in
the universe that can help a man do a thing
zvhen he thinks he cannot do it. Self-faith
must lead the way. You cannot go beyond the
limits you set for yourself.

It is one of the most diMcult things to a

SELF-CONFIDENCE 179

mortal to really believe in his own bigness, in
his own grandeur; to believe that his yearn-
ings and hungerings and aspirations for
higher, nobler things have any basis in reality
or any real, ultimate end. But they are, in fact,
the signs of ability to match them, of power to
make them real. They are the stirrings of the
divinity within us ; the call to something bet-
ter, to go higher.

No man gets very far in the world or ex-
presses great power until self-faith is born in
him ; until he catches a glimpse of his higher,
nobler self ; until he realizes that his ambition,
his aspiration, are proofs of his ability to
reach the ideal which haunts him. The Creator
would not have mocked us with the yearning
for infinite achievement without giving us the
ability and the opportunity for realizing it,
any more than he would have mocked the wild
birds with an instinct to fly south in the winter
without giving them a sunny South to match
the instinct.

The cause of whatever comes to you in life
is within you. There is where it is created.
The thing you long for and work for comes
to you because your thought has created it ;
because there is something inside you that
attracts it. It comes because there is an affinity

i8o PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

within you for it. Your ozvn comes to you; is
always seeking you.

Whenever you see a person who has been
unusually successful in any field, remember
that he has usually thought himself into his
position ; his mental attitude and energy have
created it ; what he stands for in his commu-
nity has come from his attitude toward life,
toward his fellow men, toward his vocation,
toward himself. Above all else, it is the out-
come of his self-faith, of his inward vision
of himself; the result of his estimate of his
powers and possibilities.

The men who have done the great things
in the world have been profound believers in
themselves.

If I could give the young people of America
but one word of advice, it would be this —
" Believe in yourself with all your might."
That is, believe that your destiny is inside of
you, that there is a power within you which,
if awakened, aroused, developed, and matched
with honest effort, will not only make a noble
man or woman of you, but will also make you
successful and happy.

All through the Bilile we find emphasized
the miracle-working power of faith. Faith in
himself indicates that a man has a glimpse of

SELF-CONFIDENCE i8i

forces within him which either annihilate the
obstacles in the way, or make them seem
insignificant in comparison with his ability to
overcome them.

Faith opens the door that enables us to look
into the soul's limitless possibilities and re-
veals such powers there, such unconquerable
forces, that we are not only encouraged to go
on, but feel a great consciousness of added
power because we have touched omnipotence,
have a glimpse of the great source of things.

Faith is that something within us which
does not guess, but knows. It knows because
it sees what our coarser selves, our animal
natures cannot see. It is the prophet within
us, the divine messenger appointed to accom-
pany man through life to guide and direct
and encourage him. It gives him a glimpse of
his possibilities to keep him from losing heart,
from quitting his upward life struggle.

Our faith knows because it sees what we
cannot see. It sees resources, powers, poten-
cies which our doubts and fears veil from us.
Faith is assured, is never afraid, because it
sees the way out ; sees the solution of its
problem. It has dipped in the realms of our
finer life, our higher and diviner kingdom. All
things are possible to him who has faith, be-

i82 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

cause faith sees, recognizes the power that
means accomplishment.

If we had faith in God and in ourselves we
could remove all mountains of difficulty, and
our lives would be one triumphal march to
the goal of our ambition.

If we had faith enough we could cure all
our ills and accomplish the maximum of our
possibilities.

Faith never fails ; it is a miracle worker. It
looks be)'ond all boundaries, transcends all
limitations, penetrates all obstacles and sees
the goal.

It is doubt and fear, timidity and cowardice,
that hold us down and keep us in mediocrity
— doing petty things when we are capable of
sublime deeds.

If we had faith enough we should travel
Godward infinitely faster than we do.

The time will come when every human
being will have unbounded faith and will live
the life triumphant. Then there will be no
poverty in the world, no failures, and the dis-
cords of life will all vanish.

XI. AFFIRMATION AND AUDIBLE
SUGGESTION

XI. AFFIRMATION AND AUDIBLE
SUGGESTION.

Look out for the man who dares assert the "I."
" What I can do, I ought to do.
What I ought to do, I can do.
What I can and ought to do,
By the grace of God I will do."

HAVE promised my God
that I will do it."

Who can estimate the tre-
mendous, buttressing power
which reenforced Lincoln
when on the 22d of Septem-
ber, 1862, he resolved upon
the Emancipation Proclamation, and entered
this solemn vow in his diary : " I have prom-
ised my God that I will do it."

Up to this time doubt, uncertainty, his nat-
ural precaution, had influenced him and kept
him from coming to a decision ; but now he
solemnly resolved to burn all bridges behind
him and henceforth to dedicate himself to the
accomplishment of this great purpose.

After the false report that Dreyfus had
escaped from Devil's Island, his guards were
doubled, and he was chained to a plank every
night with heavy irons, until his legs were so

185

i86 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

chafed that they became bloody and gangre-
nous. The wretched prisoner thought his jail-
ers had orders to torture him to death, but he
doggedly and persistently repeated to himself :
" I will live ! I will live ! " Who can doubt that
• — conscious as he was of his innocence — this
vehement affirmation, in conjunction with the
man's almost superhuman will-power, had
much to do with his survival of the revolting
cruelty to which he was subjected in his island
prison.

Few people realize the force that exists in a
vigorous, perpetual affirmation of the thing
we long to be or are determined to accomplish.
Great things are done under the stress of an
overmastering conviction of one's ability to
do what he undertakes ; under the tremendous
power of the affirmative, expressed with un-
flinching determination. The very intensity of
your affirmation of confidence in your ability
to do what you attempt is definitely related to
the degree of your achievement. We need
great projectile power. It is easier to force a
huge shell through the steel plates of a ship
when projected with lightning speed from the
cannon than to push it through slowly.

People who always say " God willing," or
" If Providence so wills," they will do this

AFFIRMATION 187

or that, little realize how the doubt expressed
by the " if " takes the edge from their positive-
ness, and tends to produce negative minds. If
the Creator has given a man the inclination
and the power to do a thing that is right and
good He is always willing that he should
do it.

Yet I know a man — and there are thousands
like him — who says that he never makes a
positive statement of what he is going to do,
because it would be questioning the will of
God — a reflection upon the Deity.

There is no one thing which will give a
timid soul such assurance, which will so brace
up one who is inclined to depreciate and efface
himself, as the constant afiirmation of the " I
am." " I am courage ; I am health, vigor,
strength ; I am power ; I am peace ; I am
plenty ; I am a part of abundance, because I
am one with the very Source of Infinite Sup-
ply. I am rich, because I am heir to all the
resources of the universe."

Stoutly, constantly, everlastingly afiirm that
you will become what your ambitions indicate
as fitting and possible. Do not say " I shall be
a success sometime " ; say, " I am a success.
Success is my birthright." Do not say that you
are going to be happy in the future. Say to

i88 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

yourself, " I was intended for happiness, made
for it, and I am happy."

The habit of claiming as our own, as a vivid
reality that which zve desire, has a tremendous
magnetic power. The constant vigorous as-
sertion of " I am health ; I am vigor ; I am
power; I am principle; I am truth; I am
justice; I am beauty; because made in the
image of perfection, of harmony, of truth, of
justice, of immortal beauty" — tends to the
manifestation of these things in our lives.

" I am that which I think I am — and I can
be nothing else." The man immersed in ma-
terial things and who lives only to make
money, believes he can make it; knows that
he can make it. He does not say to himself
every morning, " Well, I do not know whether
I can make anything to-day. I will try. I may
succeed and I may not," He simply and posi-
tively asserts that he can do what he desires
and then starts out to put into operation plans
and forces which will bring it about.

If you affirm " I am health ; I am prosperity ;
I am this or that," but do not believe it, you
will not be helped by affirmation. You must
believe what you affirm.

Few people realize the tremendous creative
power there is in stout self-assertion; in the

AFFIRMATION 189

vigorous affirmation of the ego, the " I," the
" I am." But those who have once properly
put it in practice never again doubt its ef-
ficacy.

A prominent music master in New York
who trains opera singers advised a girl with
great musical ability, but with deficient self-
confidence and self-assertion, to stand before
a mirror every day and, assuming a mag-
nificent pose, say to herself, " I, I, I," with all
the emphasis and power she could muster. He
told her to assert herself and to think of her-
self as a prima donna of great power ; that
by constantly assuming the part, playing the
role, she would acquire the habit of self-con-
fidence, which would be worth everything to
her. " Imagine that you are Nordica or Patti,"
he said. " Assume that part boldly and fear-
lessly— and hold yourself with a dignity and
power corresponding with the character."
This advice, which she followed literally, was
worth more to this timid girl than scores of
music lessons. The practice in it increased her
confidence in herself wonderfully, and she
was soon cured of her shyness and timidity.

Audible self-suggestion, which is merely a
continuation or extension of the affirmation
principle, is one of the greatest aids to self-

igo PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

development. This form of suggestion — talk-
ing to oneself vigorously, earnestly — seems to
arouse the sleeping forces in the subconscious
self even more effectually than thinking the
same thing. We all know how we are strength-
ened by the vigorous affirmation of our de-
termination to do this or to do that. We know
the virtue in a robust determination backed
by the vigorously spoken resolve. These are
but other forms of arousing in our subcon-
scious selves latent powers which, when under-
stood and developed, will do wonders for us.
There is a force in words spoken aloud
which is not stirred by going over the same
words mentally. They sometimes arouse slum-
bering energies within us which thinking does
not stir up — especially if we have not been
trained to think deeply ; to focus the mind
closely. They make a more lasting impression
upon the mind — just as words which pass
through the eye from the printed page make
a greater impression on the brain than we get
by thinking the same words ; as seeing objects
of nature makes a more lasting impression
upon the mind than thinking about them. A
vividness, a certain force, accompanies the spo-
ken word — especially if earnestly, vehemently
uttered — which is not apparent to many in

AFFIRMATION 191

merely thinking- about what words express.
If you repeat to yourself aloud, vigorously,
even vehemently, a firm resolve, you are more
likely to carry it to reality than if you merely
resolve in silence.

We become so accustomed to our silent
thoughts that the voicing of them, the giving
audible expression to our yearnings, makes
a much deeper impression upon us.

The audible self-encouragement treatment
may be used with marvellous results in cor-
recting our weaknesses; overcoming our de-
ficiencies.

A remarkably successful friend of mine says
that he has been wonderfully helped by talk-
ing to himself about his faults and short-
comings. " Heart-to-heart talks " with himself
he calls these little exhortations.

If he thinks his ambition is lagging, he gives
himself a mental exercise which tends to
sharpen and improve it. If he thinks his
standards are lowering, he braces up his ideal
by perpetually affirming his ability to do better
and to climb higher every day.

He says that he starts out every morning
with the determination that he is going to be
a bigger man at ni.^ht than he was in the
morning ; that he is going to stand for more ;

192 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

that he is going to carry more weight in his
community. He talks to himself about his
failures of the day before and about his pro-
gramme for the day, while he is dressing in
the morning, something after this fashion :

" Now, John, you lost your temper yester-
day ; you went all to pieces over a mistake that
some one made in the office ; you made a fool
of yourself, so that your employees thought
less of you than before, and it totally unfitted
your mind for doing the large things that
were clamoring for your attention. Don't
make that mistake to-day. You are a pretty
small man if you cannot rise above the petty
details which confuse and block shallow minds.
If you cannot rise above the trivial details of
your office you are not a leader."

One of his great weaknesses was that of
indecision. He had a perfect horror of settling
an important thing so that it could not be
reopened for consideration. He would always
leave things until the last minute — his letters
unsealed, papers unsigned, contracts open,
until he was actually forced to close them, for
fear he might want to reconsider his decisions.

He tells me that he finally overcame this
weakness by constantly telling himself how
foolish it was; how this vacillating habit

AFFIRMATION 193

would handicap his whole career, and how all
men of executive abiUty — men who do great
things — are characterized by their quick,
strong decisions.

It does not matter what the fault is —
whether it is the habit of dawdling, of being
late in keeping appointments, of losing his
temper, of being fractious and unreasonable
with his employees — whatever it may be, he
talks himself out of it. In his talks, he calls
himself by name, and carries a picture of his
other, better, diviner self in his mind ; persist-
ently holding before himself the image of the
man he wants to be, longs to be, and constantly
affirms his ability to be. He says that nothing
else has done half as much for him as this
habit of talking things over with himself.

Another young man in New York recently
told me that he tries to walk through Central
Park every morning on his way to business
in order to get a chance to talk to himself
alone. During these talks, he tells himself that,
let what will come during the day, he must
not lose his self-control ; he must be a gentle-
man under all circumstances ; that he must
not allow worry, anxiety, or unfortunate
moods to waste his energy, but must work it
all up into effectiveness.

194 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

He says that this self " jacking-np " — as he
calls it — this self-tuning in the morning, not
only helps him to get a larger efficiency into
his day's work, but also to do the work with
much less wear and tear. It is a tremendous
tonic. It stimulates him to better and better
work. Since he has adopted the self-com-
muning, self-bracing habit, he has gone ahead
by leaps and bounds.

Every man would be helped as these young
men have been by the habit of talking to him-
self just as though he were another person
in whom he was very much interested and to
whom he was giving his best advice.

Whenever you can do so, it is a good plan
to get so far away from others that you will
not be conscious of their presence, and then
go through your resolutions verbally — with
vehemence, if necessary. You will soon be
surprised to find how much better they will
stick in your consciousness, and how much
more likely you are to follow your own advice
when you give it orally.

If you have some vicious habit which is
keeping you back, sapping the life out of you,
you will be greatly strengthened in your power
to overcome it by constantly saying to your-
self, " I know this thing (calling it by name)

AFFIR^IATION 195

is destroying my vitality. I am not so vigor-
ous ; so robust physically and mentally ; I am
not so efficient as I should be ; I do not think
so clearly, I cannot control my mind so well
as I could were I not hampered by this weak-
ness.

" The paralyzing habit is placing me at a
great disadvantage in life ; it is holding me up
to ridicule, to unfavorable comparison with
others. I know that I have more ability than
many of those about me who are accomplish-
ing a great deal more. Now, I am going to
conquer this thing which is destroying my
prospects. I am going to get freedom for my-
self at any cost."

If your sin is immorality say to yourself:
" Nothing will blacken my soul quicker than
this. I am ruining my chances of future hap-
piness. This cursed thing is an insult to my
ideal of womanhood, an insult to my future
wife, a crime to my future children. There is
no other thing which will so deteriorate my
manhood, which will so honeycomb my very
character and destroy my self-respect as this
damnable thing. I hereby take a sacred oath
never to repeat that which will lessen my
chances in life, that which will make me think
less of myself. I despise the thing which will

196 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

keep me back in life, which will tend to make
me a failure and anything less than a man. I
will not take the risk of indulging a little lon-
ger with the hope that something may help me
break the habit, or that something will assist
me to get strength later, because I know that
every indulgence in the vicious habit binds me
more strongly to it, and makes my chance of
breaking away so much less.'"

Just talk to yourself in this way whenever
alone and you will be surprised to see how
quickly the audible suggestion will weaken the
grip of the vicious habit. In a short time your
self-talks will so strengthen your will power
that you will be able to entirely eradicate your
weakness.

But you must be very positive in the affirma-
tion of your ability to overcome it. If you sim-
ply say to yourself, " I know that this thing
is bad for me; I know that if I continue to
drink, or to smoke cigarettes, or to practice
immorality, it will interfere with my success,
but I do not believe I shall ever be able to
overcome it ; it has gotten such a hold on me
that I cannot give it up " — you will never
make any headway.

Always stoutly afUrm your ability to con-
quer. Say to yourself, " I was not made to be

AFFIRMATION 197

dominated by a vice, a weed, or an extract of
grain. God's image in me was not intended to
wallow in filth. I can never use the ability I
have to the best advantage, never be the man
I was intended to be or am capable of being,
while I harbor this enemy which will sap my
ability and weaken my chances in life. It is
creating structural changes in my body ; it is
destroying my ability and blunting my moral
sensibility. I am done with it once and for-
ever ; the appetite for it is destroyed in my
being. I do not want it — I do not need it — I
will not touch it. I was made to hold up my
head and be a man — to do the work of a man.
There is something divine within me — the
God-man — perfectly able to overcome this
thing which is crippling my career and hold-
ing me back, and I am going to do it."

Don't be disappointed if you do not get im-
mediate relief. Continue to talk to yourself in
this confident manner, especially upon retiring,
always affirming your ability to overcome your
weakness, whatever it may be, and you will
conquer. Your will power will assist you, but
conviction is a thousand times stronger than
will power ; and the constant affirmation of the
ability of the divinity within you to overcome
the thing which handicaps you will finally help

198 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

you to conquer. When you once get a glimpse
of the divine power within you, and experience
its help; when you learn to trust to the God
in you for assistance, you will find yourself
and the Divinity always in the majority. No
power can stand against you then.

At first it may seem silly to you to be talk-
ing to yourself, but you will derive so much
benefit from it that you will have recourse to
it in remedying all your defects. There is no
fault, however great or small, which will not
succumb to persistent audible suggestion. For
example, you may be naturally timid and
shrink from meeting people ; and you may dis-
trust your own ability. If so, you will be great-
ly helped by assuring yourself in your daily
self-talks that you are not timid ; that, on the
contrary, you are the embodiment of courage
and bravery. Assure yourself that there is no
reason why you should be timid, because there
is nothing inferior or peculiar about you ; that
you are attractive, and that you know how to
act in the presence of others. Say to yourself
that you are never again going to allow your-
self to harbor any thoughts of self-deprecia-
tion or timidity or inferiority; that you are
going to hold your head up and go about as
though you were a king, a conqueror, instead

AFFIRMATION 199

of crawling about like a whipped cur. You
are going to assert your manhood, your indi-
viduality.

Man was planned to stand erect, to look up, ]
to go through life with his backbone straight,
to look the world in the face with a fearless
eye — he was never made to cower and flinch, \
to whine, to apologize and to depreciate his
ability.

If you lack initiative, stoutly affirm your
ability to begin things, and to push them
through to a finish. And always put your re-
solve into action at the first opportunity.

If you are bashful, diffident in company, and
inclined to depreciate yourself and think that
you are not quite as good as other people, just
deny all of this to yourself, and resolve that
you will never lose an opportunity for culti-
vating and strengthening your deficient con-
versational faculties.

Never allow yourself to imagine that you
are being watched or laughed at. Always
think of yourself as a king or a queen. If you
suffer from self-consciousness, oversensitive-
ness, say to yourself constantly : " I am a king.
There is no reason why I should consider my-
self inferior to others. I will just walk about
as though I were governor of my state, or

200 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

mayor of my city ; a full, complete man — mas-
ter of the situation."

If you are the victim of indecision ; if you
are inclined to weigh and balance and recon-
sider tilings all the time, just deny all this
to yourself verbally, strongly, emphatically,
and resolve that hereafter you are going to act
before your doubt has a chance to weaken your
decision or ask for a reconsideration. Say to
yourself that you would better make mistakes
than not to act at all, or to be forever on the
fence.

If you have hard work to make up your
mind to undertake what you know you ought
to, just get by yourself somewhere alone and
brace yourself up. Talk to yourself as you
would to some friend whom you love; some
one whom you know has ability but lacks cour-
age and pluck. Reenforce yourself; reinvigor-
ate your mind ; reassure yourself.

Through these self-talks, if you will be sin-
cere with yourself and strong and persistent
in your affirmations, you will be surprised to
see how you can increase your courage, your
confidence, and your ability to execute your
ideas.

I know a young man who was so self-con-
scious when a youth that he would cross the

AFFIRMATION 201

street to avoid meeting any one he knew. He
was completely confused when any one he was
not accustomed to see chanced to speak to him.
He was constantly depreciating himself and
belittling his ability. Indeed, I have rarely
seen any one who depreciated a splendid abil-
ity so much as he did. Yet he has so entirely
overcome these faults by audible suggestion
that no one would suspect that he had ever
lacked self-appreciation or confidence, or that
he had been a victim of shyness.

He tells me that he used to go out in the
country and talk to himself seriously about
his failings. " Now, Arthur, either there is
something in you or there is not ; and I am
going to find out," he would say. " Do not be
a fool. You are just as good as anybody else,
so long as you behave as well. Hold up your
head and be a man. Do not be afraid to face
anybody. Go about among people as though
you were somebody. Quit this everlasting self-
depreciation, self-effacement. You are God's
child, and you have just as good a right on
this glad green earth as anybody else. Do not
go about apologizing for being alive, or im-
agining you are taking up room which belongs
to others."

He says that he also derives very great

202 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

benefit from praising and appreciating himself
audibly when he has done unusually well, or
has acquitted himself as a man. On such occa-
sions he will sav : " Arthur, that was fine ! You
did splendidly ! I am proud of you. That just
shows what you are capable of. Do as well in
every instance, and you will amount to some-
thing in the world and be somebody."

I know of nothing so helpful for the timid,
those who lack faith in themselves, as the habit
of constantly affirming their own importance,
their own power, their own divinity. When a
man once sees that he is divine, once gets a
glimpse of his own capability, he will never
be content to wallow in the mud and mire of
things ; nor will he doubt his own kingship.
The trouble is that men do not think half
enough of themselves ; do not accurately meas-
ure their ability ; do not put the right estimate
upon their possibilities. We berate ourselves,
belittle, efiface ourselves, because we do not
see the larger, diviner man in us.

The objective side of man has a wonderful
power to inspire and to encourage the sub-
jective side; to arouse the subconscious men-
tality where all latent power and possibilities
lie. Deep within man dwell those slumbering
powers; powers that would astonish him, that

AFFIRMATION 203

he never dreamed of possessing; forces that
would revolutionize his life if aroused and
put into action.

The majority of people call out but a very
small percentage of these latent forces which
are waiting to serve them. Many pass the
half-century mark before some emergency or
crisis in their life lifts the lid off their possi-
bilities, and multitudes go through life without
ever getting a glimpse of their powers.

Many a family has eked out a miserable
existence in poverty and drudgery while there
was a fortune in minerals or oils in the very
soil which they owned. Millions have died in
mental penury, died weaklings, when they had
within their own natures vast possibilities of
power which they never uncovered, never
utilized.

As miners have died poor while holding
claims which covered great wealth, so vast
multitudes of people die poor without ever
working the rich mines within them.

The trouble with us is that we do not make
a loud enough call upon the Great Within of
us, our higher, more potent selves. We are too
timid, too tame in our demands.

" Affirm that which you wish, and it will be
manifest in your life." Affirm it confidently,

204 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

with the utmost faith, without any doubt of
what you affirm.

Assert your possession of the things you
need ; of the qualities you long to own. Force
your mind toward your goal ; hold it there
steadily, persistently, for this is the mental
condition that creates. The negative mind,
which doubts and wavers, creates nothing.
" Nerve us with incessant affirmatives ; do not
bark against the bad; but chant the beauties
of the good."

" I, myself, am good fortune," says Walt
Whitman.

If we could only realize that the very atti-
tude of assuming that we are the real embodi-
ment of the thing we long to be or to attain,
that we possess the good things we long for,
not that we possess all the qualities of good,
but that we are these qualities — with the con-
stant affirming, " I myself am good luck, good
fortune ; I am myself a part of the great crea-
tive, sustaining principle of the universe, be-
cause my real, divine self and my Father are
one " — what a revolution would come to
earth's toilers !

XII. DESTRUCTIVE AND
CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION

XII. DESTRUCTIVE AND
CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION

RIMINALS are mental crimi-
nals first. The deed itself is
merely the physical acting
out of the crime which they
have rehearsed so many times
in their imagination.

An ex-convict who served
twenty-five years in the different penitentiaries
of New York State said that he did not have
the slightest conscious thought of ever becom-
ing a criminal. But he had a natural love for
doing things which seemed impossible to
others, and when he went by a rich man's resi-
dence he could not help thinking out different
ways of entering the house in the night, until
he finally attempted it. He took great pride in
going from room to room while everybody
was asleep and getting out without waking
any one. Every time he did this he felt a sense
of triumph, as though he had done something
worthy of praise. He said he did not rob so
much for the value of the things he stole as
to gratify his passion for taking risks, and he
could hardly believe it when he found that he
was actually doing the things he had contem-

207

2o8 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

plated until they became a part of his nature.
When he was arrested the first time, it did not
seem possible to him that he could be a
criminal.

This shows what a dangerous thing it is to
hold in the mind a wrong suggestion, for it
tends to become a part of us, and, before we
realize it, we are like our thought.

Professional burglars tell us that for years
before they fell they committed all sorts of
thefts in their imagination. They would think
out ingenious ways of entering houses and
accomplishing their ends without detection.

They dwelt upon the thought of crime so
long that, before they were aware of it, they
had actually committed the deed. The criminal
suggestion was held in mind until it became
incorporated in their life structure, and they
were amazed to find themselves criminals.
Many of them had no thought of ever commit-
ting actual crime when they first began to
think about it, but the criminal thought, the
criminal suggestion, did its work.

Who can picture the havoc which the sus-
picious suggestion has wrought in innocent
lives? Think of the influence of employers
holding the thought of suspicion regarding
their servants or other employees.

DESTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION 209

Servants have actually been made dishonest
by other persons perpetually holding the sus-
picion that they were dishonest. This thought
suggests dishonesty to the suspected perhaps
for the first time, and being constantly held
takes root and grows, and bears the fruit of
theft. The old proverb, " If you have the
name, you might as well have the game," is
put into action many times. It is simply cruel •
to hold a suspicious thought of another until
you have positive proof. That other person's
mind is sacred ; you have no right to invade
it with your miserable thoughts and pictures
of suspicion. You should not indulge in such
thoughts of yourself, any more than you would
allow yourself to hold thoughts of blacker
sin or crime. Many a being has been made
wretched and miserable for years ; has been
depressed and borne down by the uncharitable,
wicked thoughts of others.

Many people scatter fear thoughts, doubt
thoughts, failure thoughts wherever they go;
and these take root in minds that might other-
wise be free from them and therefore happy,
confident, and successful.

Who can ever estimate the human tragedy,
the suffering, the failures, caused by hypno-
tizing oneself by vicious thoughts, or becom-

2IO PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

ing- hypnotized throug-h the wrong thoughts
of others?

The time will come when we shall have more
sympathy for those who go wrong, and even
for criminals ; because we shall know how pow-
erfully human minds are influenced by the
vicious thoughts of others.

Many a youth who has been thrown into
prison for some minor offense has been
changed into a hardened criminal by constant
association with the criminal classes ; by being
cut off from all communication and association
with the good, and with no possibility of even
seeing good books. The perpetual criminal sug-
gestions about him were held in his mind so
long that he became morbid, surcharged with
criminal tendencies. If, instead of being locked
up, he could be put upon a huge farm in a
beautiful section of the country, with beautiful
surroundings of mountains, lakes, flowers,
trees and grass, and placed under kindly, edu-
cative influences, it would be possible to re-
form the criminal in a great majority of cases.
The substitution of prison surroundings, the
consciousness that he is cut off from the world
he loves — from friends, from healthy influ-
ences, from all possibility of carrying out his
ambitions — disheartens and discourages him,

DESTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION 211

and his mind soon coincides with the continual
suggestions around him.

We are creatures of suggestion. We get
them from newspapers, books, from every one
with whom we come in contact. The atmos-
phere is full of them. We are constantly giv-
ing them to ourselves. In other words, our
characters are largely made up from various
kinds of suggestion.

We all know how we are influenced by a
powerful play or a powerful book.

I know a lady who reads the most tragic and
emotional stories she can get hold of ; and she
says she is often so aflfected by a book that
she is obliged to go to bed for an entire day
at a time. So powerfully does the suggestion
in the book take possession of her, that, for the
time, she lives the life that is depicted there.
She feels that she is one of the characters she
is reading about.

It is not difficult to trace many a criminal's
acts to the graphic suggestions of criminal
novels, the exciting stories of murder and
plunder which he began to read when a child.

People with criminal tendencies love to read
stories of crime and hairbreadth escapes. They
are great detective-story readers. Some youths
unconsciously inflame their imagination thus

212 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

until they become abnormal. They develop a
morbid desire actually to do the criminal deed
which they have performed so many times
mentally.

Think of the awful responsibility of throw-
ing out in picture, in cartoon, in print, the daily
suggestion of scandal, of murder, of suicide,
of crime in all its forms, with all the insidious
suggestiveness which lives in detailed descrip-
tion !

Some time ago the mayor of one of our
western cities requested the editors of the daily
papers to refrain from publishing the details
of suicides, because he said their publication
had caused an alarming epidemic of suicides
in that community.

There is no doubt that many a criminal is
serving a sentence which ought to be served
by those who have influenced him to commit
the crime for which he is being punished.

Indelible and satanic is the taint of the evil
suggestion which a lewd, questionable picture
or story leaves in the mind. Nothing else more
fatally mars the ideals of life and lowers the
standard of manhood and womanhood.

The suggestion of impurity in trashy litera-
ture is responsible for a great deal of dissipa-
tion ; for blasted hopes and blighted lives. The

DESTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION 213

same is true of suggestiveness in art. Many-
impure artists have made their fortunes and
their reputations by treading upon forbidden
ground, by going just as near the point of
legal prohibition in their pictures as possible.

If young people only realized what a terrible
thing it is to get even a suggestion of impurity
into the mind, they would never read an author
whose lines drip with the very gall of death.
They would not look at those dangerous books
which lead their readers as near the edge of
indecency as possible without stepping over.
To describe impurity in rosy, glowing, seduc-
tive, suggestive language, is but the refinement
of the house of death.

We have all had the exalted experience, the
marvellous tonic, the uplift, that has come
from the suggestion in a play or a book de-
picting a great hero. How heroic and noble
and self-sacrificing we feel for a long time,
and how resolved we are to become like the
hero in the play or the story ! This is a good
illustration of the power suggestion is con-
stantly playing in our experience all through
life.

How important it is that from childhood we
should be in the atmosphere of uplifting, en-
couraging, cheerful, optimistic, loving ideals!

y

214 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

Teachers tell us that in the schools in the slums
of cities there are children who never smile,
who are always sad and gloomy because of the
terrible influence in their homes ; where there
is a constant suggestion of suffering, of filth,
of profanity and of impurity; where all the
ideals are low and debasing.

I have known bright, healthy, refined orphan
children to be completely transformed by being
placed in coarse families, where hard, brutal
suggestions were held constantly before their
minds until their dispositions and characters
were hardened, and all that was noblest and
best in their natures was petrified.

It is easy to account for a hard, cold, selfish
nature when we find that the child has held
these qualities as perpetual suggestions in the
mind from infancy. Sweetness and light and
beauty of character are not developed in an
atmosphere thick with hatred and envy and
poisoned with jealousy and selfishness. Like
produces like ; this is an inexorable law every-
where. Love is not generated in an atmosphere
of bitterness ; unselfishness and sympathy are
not fostered in an environment of greed and
heartlessness.

Dr. El wood Worcester, leader of the Em-
manuel movement in B.. ^ton is a firm believer

DESTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION 215

in the power of suggestion to mould the char-
acter of the child. He says : " There is a very
easy and rational way by which many child-
ish faults can be removed ; that is, by making
good suggestions to our children while they
are in a state of natural sleep.

" My method is to address the sleeping child
in a low and gentle tone, telling it that I am
about to speak to it, and that it will hear me,
but that my words will not disturb it nor will
it awake. Then I give the necessary words, re-
peating them in different language several
times. By this means I have removed childish
fears and corrected bad habits. I have checked
nervous twitchings, anger, violence, a disposi-
tion to lie, and I have improved speech in
stammering children."

We are so largely products of our environ-
ment ; we are so sensitive to the suggestion
dominant in our minds, that we can have a
powerful influence over our destiny by auto-
suggestion. We can often so dominate a
vicious thought in our environment by a coun-
teracting self-suggestion as to completely de-
stroy it. The powerful self-suggestion of
purity will quickly annihilate the opposite sug-
gestion from others. The self-suggestions of
justice and truth will quickly overmaster the

2i6 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

suggestions of injustice and falsehood from
those about us.

" As a therapeutic agency and an uplifting
ethical force," says Dr. Worcester, " auto-sug-
gestion can hardly be exaggerated. The vari-
ous troubles, physical and mental, which are
amenable to its influence make a long list. In
these and other troubles the patient can, as
Shakespeare says, ' minister to himself.' What
a gospel of hope is here for the depressed and
unhappy! What a chance of redemption for
those who are the slaves of circumstance or of
their own folly ! "

It is wholly a question of making the de-
mand, the call, upon our better self so em-
phatic, so vigorous, and so appealing that it
will arouse our higher nature. Then there will
be a leaping forth of an overpowering energy
of the Godlike in us.

When we see a man who has been but a
mere apology for a human being, a curse to
the race for half a lifetime, converted, trans-
formed, by the love of some noble woman or
friend, become a great power for good, we are
apt to think that this transformation, this mira-
cle is due to some force, some power outside of
himself. But the power was within him all the
time, waiting to be aroused, to be awakened.

DESTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION 217

When the right suggestion comes, and is made
emphatic, vigorous enough, the divine within
us will respond.

People who are " down on their luck " are,
as a rule, the victims of their own negative
suggestion. If they could only substitute the
positive, the creative, for the negative, the de-
structive suggestion which enslaves them, they
would win instead of losing.

Darwin has shown that every mental state
has a corresponding physical expression, and
that if you assume one you are likely to
experience the other. Anger, for instance,
expresses itself physically in violent language,
clenching the fists, slamming the door, or in
other forms. And as a man may make himself
angry by doing these things, so he can put
himself into a devotional frame of mind by
assuming an attitude of prayer.

Some people are so happily constituted that
they are constantly rejuvenating and refresh-
ening and elevating themselves by the habitual
appeal to their minds through suggestion. They
keep so close to the divine power that they feel
its thrill and are propelled by the great divine
current.

How often we are surprised at the discov-
ery of some unexpected power or possibility

2i8 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

within ourselves, which has been brought to
the surface by the suggestion of some book,
or by some friend who believed in us, or saw
in us what we could not see ourselves !

The human mind may be attuned to any
key, high or low, base or noble, by the power
of suggestion. The suggestion may be in a
word spoken by oneself or by another ; it may
come from a book or a picture ; it may ema-
nate from the presence of a friend or of an
enemy, from a grand, heroic character, or a
mean, cowardly one. From hundreds of sources
it may come, from within or without, but
wherever it comes from, it leaves its mark on
the life for good or ill.

Suggestion in its highest form is the appeal
to our higher self to come into recognition of
its own. No matter how bad a man may seem
to be, there is a better man within him. No
matter how low he may have sunk morally,
to all outward appearance, there is something
absolutely spotless within him, something
which has never been smirched and can never
be, and which will ultimately claim its birth-
right and come to its own in splendor and
power.

No matter how soiled a banknote becomes
it is always redeemable so long as there is any

DESTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION 219

distinguishable mark of its genuineness. There
is something within every human being which
will ultimately redeem him, no matter how far
he may have drifted from the right. There is
a better self in the worst criminal in our peni-
tentiaries which will some day, somewhere, re-
deem him, bring him to his own. The God
within him will finally triumph. Every human
being some time, somewhere, will come into
harmony with the divine. Every child of the
King will ultimately inherit his kingdom.

XIII. WORRY, THE DISEASE OF
THE AGE

XIII. WORRY, THE DISEASE OF
THE AGE

Some people bear three kinds of trouble — all they
ever had, all they have now, and all they expect to
have. — Edward Everett Hale.

NE who could rid the world
of worry would render
greater service to the race
than all of the inventors and
discoverers that ever lived.

We Americans pity igno-
rant savages who live in terror
of their cruel gods, their demons which keep
them in abject slavery, but we ourselves are
the slaves of a demon which blasts our hopes,
blights our happiness, casts its hideous shadow
across all our pleasures, destroys our sleep,
mars our health, and keeps us in misery most
of our lives.

This monster dogs us from the cradle to the
grave. There is no occasion so sacred but it is
there. Unbidden it comes to the wedding and
the funeral alike. It is at every reception,
every banquet ; it occupies a seat at every tabic.
No human intellect can estimate the unutter-
able havoc and ruin wrought by worry. It has
forced genius to do the work of mediocrity;

223

224 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

it has caused more failures, more broken
hearts, more blasted hopes, than any other one
cause since the dawn of the world.

What have not men done under the pressure
of worry ! They have plunged into all sorts
of vice; have become drunkards, drug fiends;
have sold their very souls in their efforts to
escape this monster.

Think of the homes which it has broken up ;
the ambitions it has ruined ; the hopes and
prospects it has blighted ! Think of the suicide
victims of this demon ! If there is any devil in
existence, is it not worry, with all its attendant
progeny of evils?

Yet, in spite of all the tragic evils that fol-
low in its wake, a visitor from another world
would get the impression that worry is one of
our dearest, most helpful friends, so closely do
we hug it to ourselves and so loath are we to
part from it.

Is it not unaccountable that people who
know perfectly well that success and happiness
both depend on keeping themselves in condi-
tion to get the most possible out of their ener-
gies should harbor in their minds the enemy
of this very success and happiness? Is it not
strange that they should form this habit of
anticipating evils that will probably never

WORRY, DISEASE OF THE AGE 225

come, when they know that anxiety and fret-
ting will not only rob them of peace of mind
and strength and ability to do their work, but
also of precious years of life ?

Many a strong man is tied down, like Gulli-
ver, by Lilliputians — ^bound hand and foot by
the little worries and vexations he has never
learned to conquer.

What would be thought of a business man ^ v p/^
who would keep in his service employees
known to have been robbing him for years,
stealing a little here and a little there every
day? Yet one may be keeping in his mental
business house, at the very source of his
power, a thief infinitely worse than one who
merely steals money or material things ; a
thief who robs him of energy, saps his vitality,
and bankrupts him of all that makes life worth
while.

Do we pity the pagans who lacerate them-
selves in all sorts of cruel ways in their wor-
ship? Yet many of us constantly torment our-
selves by all sorts of mental instruments of
torture.

We borrow trouble ; endure all our lives the
woe of crossing and recrossing bridges weeks
and years before we come to them; do dis-
agreeable tasks mentally over and over again

226 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

before we reach them ; anticipate our drudgery
and constantly suffer from the apprehension of
terrible things that never happen.

I know women who never open a telegram
without trembling, for they feel sure it will
announce the death of a friend or some ter-
rible disaster. If their children have gone for
a sail or a picnic, they are never easy a mo-
ment during their absence ; they work them-
selves into a fever of anxiety for fear that
some accident will befall them, that something
awful will happen to them.

Many a mother fritters away more energy
in useless frets and fears for her children, in
nervous strain over this or that, than she uses
for her daily routine of domestic work. She
wonders why she is so exhausted at the close
of the day, and never dreams that she has
thrown away the greater part of her force.

Is it not strange that people will persist in
allowing little worries, petty vexations, and
unnecessary frictions to grind life away at
such a fearful rate that old age stares them
in the face in middle life? Look at the women
who are shrivelled and shrunken and aged at
thirty, not because of tht hard work they have
done, or the real troubles they have had, but
because of habitual fretting, which has helped

WORRY, DISEASE OF THE AGE 227

nobody, but has brought discord and unhap-
piness to their homes.

Somewhere I read of a worn.-ing' woman
who made a Hst of possible unfortunate events
and happenings which she felt sure would
come to pass and be disastrous to her happi-
ness and welfare. The list was lost, and to her
amazement, when she recovered it, a long time
afterwards, she found that not a single unfor-
tunate prediction in the whole catalogue of
disasters had taken place.

Is not this a good suggestion for worriers?
Write down everything which you think is
going to turn out badly, and then put the list
aside. You will be surprised to see what a small
percentage of the doleful things ever come to
pass.

It is a pitiable thing to see vigorous men and
women, who have inherited godlike qualities
and bear the impress of divinity, wearing anx-
ious faces and filled with all sorts of fear and
uncertainty, worrying about yesterday, to-day,
to-morrow — ever}'thing imaginable.

In entering New York by train every morn-
ing, I notice business men with hard, tense
expressions on their faces, leaning forward
when the train approaches the station, as if
they could hasten its progress and save time,

228 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

many of them getting up from their seats and
rushing toward the door several minutes be-
fore the train stops. The anxiety in their every
movement ; the hurried nervousness in their
manner ; and their hard, drawn countenances
— all are indications of an abnormal life.

No man can utilize his normal power who
dissipates his nervous energy in useless anxiety.
Nothing will sap one's vitality and blight one's
ambition or detract from one's real power in
the world more than the worrying habit.

Work kills no one, but worr>^ has killed
multitudes. It is not the doing things which
injures us so much as the dreading to do them
— not only performing them mentally over and
over again, but anticipating something dis-
agreeable in their performance.

Many of us approach an unpleasant task In
much the same condition as a runner who
begins his start such a long distance away
that by the time he reaches his objective point
— the ditch or the stream which is to test his
agility — he is too exhausted to jump across.

Worry not only saps vitality and wastes
energy-, but it also seriously affects the quality
of one's work. It cuts down ability. A man
cannot get the highest quality of efficiency into
his work when his mind is troubled. The men-

WORRY, DISEASE OF THE AGE 229

tal faculties must have perfect freedom before
they will give out their best. A troubled brain
cannot think clearly, vigorously, and logically.
The attention cannot be concentrated with any-
thing like the same force when the brain cells
are poisoned with anxiety as when they are
fed by pure blood and are clean and unclouded.
The blood of chronic worriers is vitiated with
poisonous chemical substances and broken-
down tissues, according to Prof. Elmer Gates
and other noted scientists, who have shown
that the passions and the harmful emotions
cause actual chemical changes in the secre-
tions and generate poisonous substances in the
body which are fatal to healthy growth and
action.

The brain cells are constantly bathed in the
blood, from which they draw their nourish-
ment, and when the blood is loaded with the
poison of fear, worry, anger, hatred, or jeal-
ousy, the protoplasm of those delicate cells be-
comes hard and is thus materially injured.

The most pathetic effect of worry is its im-
pairment of the thinking powers. It so clogs
the brain and paralyzes thought that the re-
sults of the worrier's work merely mock his
ambition, and often lead to the drink or drug
habit. Its continued friction robs the brain

230 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

cells of an opportunity to renew themselves ;
and so after awhile there is a breakdown of
the nervous system and then the worrier suf-
fers from insomnia and other nervous ail-
ments, and sometimes becomes hopelessly
insane.

If you never accomplish anything else in
life, get rid of worry. There are no greater
enemies of harmony than little anxieties and
petty cares. Do not flies aggravate a nervous
horse more than his work? Do not little nag-
gings, constantly touching him with the whip,
or jerking at the reins, fret and worry him
much more than the labor of drawing the
carriage ?

It is the little pin-pricks, the petty annoy-
ances of our every-day life, that mar our com-
fort and happiness and rob us of more strength
than the great troubles which we nerve our-
selves to meet. It is the perpetual scolding and
fault-finding of an irritable man or woman
which ruins the entire peace and happiness of
many a home.

An habitual worrier — an aged woman —
said to her physician, " My head feels dull-
like, and I've kinder lost the power to worry
over things." A great many people would be
much troubled were they to lose the power to

WORRY, DISEASE OF THE AGE 231

worry over things. They think it their duty
to worry. They would not feel that they were
conscientious or faithful if they were not
always anxious over what they were doing.
They would not think they were showing a
proper interest in it.

Anticipating a thing tends to bring it to us.
Worry about disease is a disease producer. It
is well known that many victims of the great
plagues of history have been slain simply by
fear and dread.

Professor Gates says that by directing his
thought to one of his thumbs, and holding it
there, in ten minutes' time the thumb was
gorged with blood, and the temperature was
two degrees higher than in the other thumb.
This is what happens when the worry thought
— the terror thought — of some disease is con-
tinually focused on a part of the body which
we think has been affected by heredity.

Great numbers of men and women become
hypochondriacs by dwelling for a long time on
diseases they fear. If they happen to feel a
little stupid or absent-minded, if their minds
do not always work just right, as is often the
case with even the most healthy brains, they
immediately surmise that there is something
wrong with their heads.

232 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

There is no doubt that the " quick lunch "
habit, the habit of bolting the food without
proper mastication, is a fruitful source of in-
digestion, and this has a great deal to do with
the worry habit of the American people.

The digestive organs are extremely sensitive
to worry, and when the digestion is interfered
with the whole physical economy is thrown
into disorder.

Worry and fear will not only whiten the
hair, but will also cause premature baldness —
a condition known as nervous baldness. An-
other result is a loss of tone and elasticity in
the facial muscles. " The lips, cheeks, and lower
jaw," says Darwin, " all sink downward from
their own weight."

Worry not only makes a woman look older,
but also actually makes her older. It is a chisel
which cuts cruel furrows in the face. I have
seen one so completely changed by a few
weeks of anxiety that the whole countenance
had a different expression and the individual
seemed almost like another person.

One of the worst forms of worry is the
brooding over failure. It blights the ambition,
deadens the purpose and defeats the very
object the worrier has in view.

Some people have the unfortunate habit of

WORRY, DISEASE OF THE AGE 233

brooding over their past lives, castigating
themselves for their shortcomings and mis-
takes, until their whole vision is turned back-
ward instead of forward, and they see every-
thing in a distorted light, because they are
looking only on the shadow side.

The longer the unfortunate picture which
has caused trouble remains in the mind, the
more thoroughly it becomes imbedded there,
and the more difficult it is to remove it.

Did you ever hear of any good coming to
any human being from zvorryf Did it ever help
anybody to better his condition? Does it not
always — everywhere — do just the opposite by
impairing the health, exhausting the vitality,
lessening efficiency ?

Are we not convinced that a power beyond
our control runs the universe, that every mo-
ment of worry detracts from our success capi-
tal and makes our failure more probable ; that
every bit of anxiety and fretfulness leaves its
mark on the body, interrupts the harmony of
our physical and mental well-being, and
cripples efficiency, and that this condition is
at war with our highest endeavor ?

Let us then cease to worry. Let us stop the
habit— if we have it— of telling everybody
about our troubles. What we want to do, in

234 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

order to drive out troubles, is to forget them
— bury them — not keep them ahve by airing
them continuaUy.

A great deal can be done to correct the
causes of worry by keeping up the health stand-
ard. A good digestion, a clear conscience, and
sound sleep kill a lot of trouble. Worry thrives
best under abnormal conditions. It cannot get
much of a hold on a man with a superb phy-
sique— a man who lives a clean, sane life. It
thrives on the weak — those of low vitality
whose reserve force has been exhausted.

We see women resorting to massage, elec-
tricity, exercises, chin straps, wrinkle plasters,
and all sorts of things to erase the terrible
ravages of worry and anxiety ; apparently
ignorant of the fact that the supreme remedy
— the great panacea — is in the mind, they con-
tinue to worry as to how they shall get rid of
the effects of worry !

J Nothing else w^ill so quickly drive away
'worry as the habit of cheerfulness, of making
the best of things, of refusing to see the ugly
side of life.

When you feel fear or anxiety entering your
thought, just fill your mind instantly with
courage, hope, and confidence. Refuse to let
any enemies of your happiness and success

WORRY, DISEASE OF THE AGE 235

camp in your mind. Drive out the whole brood
of vampires.

You can kill worry thoughts easily when
you know the antidote ; and this you always
have in your mind. You do not have to go to
a drug store or a physician for it. It is always
with you — always ready. All you have to do
is to substitute hope, courage, cheerfulness,
serenity, for despondency, discouragement,
pessimism, worry. Opposite thoughts zvill not
live together. The presence of one excludes
Jhe other.

" People ask me daily," said Patti, " when
they look at my face, without a wrinkle, what
I do to keep so young. I tell them that when-
ever I have felt a wrinkle coming I have
laughed it away. My advice to the woman who
wants to remain young is : 'Be happy — don't
worry, but walk.' "

XIV. FEAR, THE CURSE OF THE
RACE

XIV. FEAR, THE CURSE OF THE
RACE

Fear makes man a slave to others. This is the tyrant's
chain. Anxiety is a form of cowardice embittering
life. — Channing.

Fear is an acid which is pumped into one's atmosphere.
It causes mental, moral, and spiritual asphyxiation,
and sometimes death; death to energy and all growth.
— Horace Fletcher.

HAT is fear? It is absolutely
nothing. It is a mental illu-
sion. There is no reality be-
hind it. It is to the sane adult
what the ghost is to the child.
There is not a single re-
deeming feature about fear
or any of its numerous progeny. It is always,
everywhere, an unmitigated curse. Although
there is no reality in fear, no truth behind it,
yet everywhere we see people who are slaves
to this monster of the imagination.

Fear is one of the most deadly instruments
for marring human lives. It has a paralyzing,
blighting influence upon the whole being. It
impoverishes the blood and destroys health by
im]jairing the digestion, cutting off nutrition,
and lowering the physical and mental vitality.

239

240 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

It crushes hope, kills courage, and so enfeebles
the mind's action that it cannot create or
produce.

All work done when one is suffering from a
sense of fear or foreboding has little efficiency.
Fear strangles originality, daring, boldness ; it
kills individuality, and weakens all the mental
processes. Great things are never done under
a sense of fear of some impending danger.
Fear always indicates weakness, the presence
of cowardice. What a slaughterer of years,
what a sacrificer of happiness and ambitions,
what a miner of careers this monster has
been ! The Bible says, " A broken spirit drieth
the bones." It is well known that mental de-
pression— melancholy — will check very mate-
rially the glandular secretions of the body and
literally dry up the tissues.

Fear depresses normal mental action, and
renders one incapable of acting wisely in an
emergency, for no one can think clearly and
act wisely when paralyzed by fear.

When a man becomes melancholy and dis-
couraged about his affairs, when he is filled
with fear that he is going to fail, and is
haunted by the spectre of poverty and a suffer-
ing family, before he realizes it, he attracts the
very thing he dreads, and the prosperity is

FEAR, CURSE OF THE RACE 241

crushed out of his business. But he is a mental
failure first.

If, instead of giving up to his fear, a man
would persist in keeping prosperity in his
mind, assume a hopeful, optimistic attitude,
and would conduct his business in a system-
atic, economical, far-sighted manner, actual
failure would be comparatively rare. But when
a man becomes discouraged, when he loses
heart and grip, and becomes panic-stricken, he
is not in a position to make the effort which
is absolutely necessary to bring victory, and
there is a shrinkage all along the line.

He is in no condition to ward off the evil
before which he cowers. His mental attitude
lowers his vitality, lessens his powers of re-
sistance, vitiates his efficiency, and ruins his
resourcefulness.

One of the worst forms of fear is that of a
foreboding of some evil to come, which hangs
over the life like a threatening cloud over a
volcano before an eruption.

Some people are always suffering from this
peculiar phase of fear. They are apprehensive
that some great misfortune is coming to them,
that they are going to lose their money or their
position ; or they are afraid of accident, or that
some fatal disease is developing in them. If

242 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

their children are away they see them in all
sorts of catastrophes — railroad wrecks, burn-
ing cars, or shipwrecks. They are always pic-
turing the worst. " You never can tell what
will happen," they say, " and it is better to
prepare for the worst."

I know a woman who went through the
most heartrending experiences for years in an-
ticipation of a catastrophe which she believed
would prove so overwhelming that it could not
possibly leave any hope behind ; but when the
thing occurred that she had dreaded for so
long, she was surprised to find that it did not
overwhelm her.

How we suffer all our lives from the fear
of accident — ^the fear of being run over in the
streets, the fear of being mairaed, of losing
our limbs, the fear of railroad accidents, of
accidents on the ocean, the fear of lightning,
of earthquakes — fear of all kinds ! And yet
here we are at the present moment, most of
us without the loss of a finger, and many
without even a scratch or a scar, although we
have, perhaps, travelled a great deal over the
world for a lifetime.

How we are dogged with this fear fiend all
our lives !

Many women have such a terror of snakes

FEAR, CURSE OF THE RACE 243

that they never take any comfort while in the
country. They are always imagining they are
going to step on one or run across one. This
dread ruins their vacations, for they never dare
go in the woods or walk on the grass.

I have known women who lived in rattle-
snake regions to be so terror-stricken for fear
they should run across these snakes that they
never dared go anywhere alone, and always
lived in anticipation of seeing these terrible
creatures.

Some people who travel in the tropics have
such fear of poisonous insects and reptiles that
they never have a minute's peace while they
are there. They are always imagining these
terrible creatures are crawling over them in
the night.

I know a man who is a born coward regard-
ing physical pain, and who lives in such terror
of sickness and disease that he makes himself
constantly wretched by anticipating maladies
which never affect him. If he feels a cold
coming on, he is sure he is going to have an
acute attack of the grip. If he has a sore
throat, he thinks it is going to develop into
tonsillitis, and that he will not be able to swal-
low. If he has a little palpitation after eating
a hearty meal, caused by undue pressure upon

244 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

the heart, he imagines he is going to be a vic-
tim of serious heart trouble.

He has become so finicky about his health
that he is a perfect nuisance to his family and
to his friends. He is always wanting windows
closed, or more heat, or he wants — nobody
knows what he will want. Plis friends do
not like to invite him to go anywhere with
them, because he is so particular about his
food, and he always imagines he is going to
be burned up in a hotel or killed on a train
or steamboat.

It is true this is an exaggerated case ; but
there are vast multitudes of people who are
under a similar domination of fear and appre-
hension all their lives. I know people who
never get happiness out of life, except in little
snatches. They work like slaves to get to-
gether enough property to carry them through,
as they say, yet they never enjoy it. They look
on life as terribly serious. They are always
afraid they are going to lose their property,
or that something fearful is going to happen.

The most deplorable waste of energy in hu-
man life is caused by the fatal habit of anti-
cipating evil, of fearing what the future has
in store for us, and under no circumstances
can the fear or worry be justified by the situa-

FEAR. CURSE OF THE RACE 245

tion, for it is always an imaginary one, utterly
groundless and without foundation.

What we fear is invariably something that
has not yet happened. It does not exist ; hence
is not a reality. If you are actually suffering
from a disease you have feared, then fear only
aggravates every painful feature of your ill-
ness and makes its fatal issue more probable.

The fear habit shortens life, for it impairs
all the physiological processes. Its power is
shown by the fact that it actually changes the
chemical composition of the secretions of the
body. Fear victims not only age prematurely
but they also die prematurely.

Sensitive, nervous people, and those who are
physically weak, suffer most from fear. We all
know how the imagination tends to exaggerate
everything, and people with sensitive, nervous
organizations, and those in feeble health usu-
ally imagine that the worst possible will hap-
pen. Strong, robust health itself will kill a '
great many fears which cause intense suffer-
ing when the vitality is low and the power
of resistance is weak.

Many people live so perpetually under the
dominion of this demon, that they never de-
velop normally. As children, their lives were
starved and stunted ; they were inoculated with

246 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

the germ of fear way back in childhood when
the mother was constantly reminding the little
ones of terrible results which would follow if
they did this or that. Fear shadows were con-
stantly projected into their susceptible little
minds, until the demon became so thoroughly
intrenched in their lives that it follows them
through the years like a hideous ghost, hover-
ing round to destroy their peace of mind and
happiness. Every ugly thing told to a child,
every shock, every fright given him will re-
main like splinters in the flesh to torture him
all his life long. Anxiety, fear, horror, will
twine themselves round these memories.

A mother little realizes the cruel thing she is
doing when she impresses upon a child's plastic
mind the terrible image of fear, which, like
letters cut on a sapling, grows wider and
deeper with age.

A perfectly normal child, with no inherited
fear tendencies, would not know the meaning
of fear. It was not intended that we should be
followed and hounded through life by this
demon. It is a creature born in our own brain,
the offspring of our own thinking and acting.
Everywhere we see the terrible havoc that fear
has wrought in human lives. The premature
wrinkles, the gray hair, the stooping shoul-

FEAR, CURSE OF THE RACE 247

ders, the anxious faces we see on all sides are
the out-picturing of foreboding fear thought.

A noted nerve specialist says : " Thousands
of times I have been compelled to recognize
the sad fact that at least eighty per cent of
morbidly timid children could have been cured
and saved, in time, by common-sense prin-
ciples of psychological and physiological hy-
giene, in which the main factor is suggestion
inspired by wholesome courage."

It is much easier for the mother or nurse
to frighten a child into submission than to
soothe it, reason with it, and the weak, igno-
rant, thoughtless mother constantly appeals to
the child's fear as the quickest, most effect-
ive means of securing obedience.

" Fear runs like a baleful thread through
the whole web of Hfe from beginning to end,"
says Dr. Holcomb. " We are born into the
atmosphere of fear and dread, and the mother
who bore us had lived in the same atmosphere
for weeks and months before we were born.
We are afraid of our parents, afraid of our
teachers, afraid of our playmates, afraid of
ghosts, afraid of rules and regulations and
punishments, afraid of the doctor, the dentist,
the surgeon. Our adult life is a state of chronic
anxiety, which is fear in a milder form. We

248 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

are afraid of failure in business, afraid of dis-
appointments and mistakes, afraid of enemies,
open or concealed ; afraid of poverty, afraid of
public opinion, afraid of accidents, of sickness,
of death, and unhappiness after death. Man is
like a haunted animal from the cradle to the
grave, the victim of real or imaginary fears,
not only his own, but those reflected upon him
from the superstitions, self-deceptions, sensory
illusions, false beliefs, and concrete errors of
the whole human race, past and present."

Most of us are foolish children, afraid of
our shadows, so handicapped in a thousand
ways that we cannot get efficiency into our
life work.

The recent spectacle of multitudes of people
(many of them waiting in line all night) draw-
ing their money out of perfectly solid banks
and trust companies is a good illustration of the
power of fear to bring about a financial panic,
even in the midst of prosperity. There was
absolutely no real cause for this panic which,
for a time, played such havoc in the financial
world. It was started by gamblers and pro-
moters, who were posing as bankers ; men who
used sacred trust assets to rig the stock mar-
ket, and to promote their own schemes gen-
erally. This financial storm came out of a clear

FEAR, CURSE OF THE RACE 249

sky, and when we were enjoying unusual pros-
perity. Capital was well employed ; compara-
tively few people were out of work in the
entire country. Almost any one, with any sort
of ability, who was willing' to work, could find
employment. There was no extended economic
disturbance anywhere, and the business of our
marvellous country was never in better con-
dition.

The moment a distrust is expressed by a
few leading financiers in a town, weaker, less
acute minds naturally magnify their fears and
spread their doubts until the whole community
is aflFected. Then the panic contagion trickles
through the masses until we hear hard times
talked about by the day laborer, discussed
everywhere, in the cars, on the streets, in the
saloons, and the imagination pictures multi-
tudes out of work and hungry.

In other words, the mind is set toward the
things people expect and believe are coming,
and, of course, this tends to bring them about.
If they would stop talking down and would
talk up, they could arrest these mental hard-
time panics, as confidence is almost omnip-
otent. Of course panics often have a real
cause — as the shortage of crops — but even then
they are exaggerated very greatly by fear,

250 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

which always predicts infinitely worse condi-
tions than actually materialize^

What sufferers many of us are for fear of
the criticism and ridicule of others! How
many people live in terror of Mrs. Grundy,
or what people will think ! Every step they take
in life they suffer from fear of what others
will say. Many people are more afraid of ridi-
cule than almost anything else. Oh, how many
victims fear has put into the grave! It has
driven people into all sorts of crime through
unbalancing the mind. It has caused terrible
tragedies in human life.

One pathetic case is that of an Indiana
farmer who was asked to come to the office of
his friend, a physician, supposedly for a
friendly purpose. He found the members of
the lunacy board there to inquire into his
sanity. "

" My God, John ! " he exclaimed, looking
at his friend, " would you send me to the mad-
house ? " After this exclamation he became
speechless, then unconscious, half paralyzed,
and died in a few hours.

A Dutch painter went into a room filled with
skeletons and other anatomical subjects, in or-
der to make sketches for a painting. He was
weary, and fell asleep. Suddenly he was

FEAR, CURSE OF THE RACE 251

aroused by an earthquake shock. The awful
picture of shaking skeletons that confronted
him on awakening so terrified the painter that
he threw himself out of a window, and, al-
though he received no physical injury, he died
of a nervous tremor.

There are many instances of soldiers who
have died of fright because they thought they
had been fatally shot, when the bullets or shells
had not even penetrated the body.

Dr. William E. Parker, of New Orleans,
says he was once asked to attend a big negro
who had been taken to the hospital in an am-
bulance. The students in charge of the ambu-
lance had frightened the man by telling him
that he had been mortally wounded by the
bullet which had struck him during a fight.
Although this negro was big, robust, and black,
yet he became almost white with fear, and
" the convulsive tremors that shook him from
time to time revealed a state of collapse that
might end in death at any time." Investigation
showed that there had been no outward flow
of blood, but that the negro had been told by
the students that there might be a fatal inter-
nal hemorrhage. He knew he had been hit, for
he had seen the hole made by the bullet in his
clothing, and his fear increased rather than

252 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

diminished. Examination revealed the fact
that the bullet had not entered his body at all.
It had struck a button and flattened out, and
when his clothing was removed it dropped to
the floor. When the doctor held up the flat-
tened bullet for the negro to see, he was in a
state of collapse. In an instant the blood re-
turned to his face, the pulse and the tempera-
ture quickly became normal, a grateful sparkle
lit up the almost glassy eyeballs, and the broad-
est possible grin spread over the face of the
erstwhile dying man.

The negro got down from the table and,
after apologizing for the trouble he had given,
walked away in perfect health, although only
a few minutes before he had been very near
death.

It is well known that when a man's foot is
caught in what is called a " frog in the switch "
of a railroad track so that he cannot withdraw
it, and he realizes that a train is rushing upon
him with no possibility of his escaping, the
terror of impending death from the approach-
ing train so poisons his blood that, even though
he is rescued, death usually results.

Courage should be taught in the schools,
because everything that men strive for — suc-
cess and happiness — are dependent upon it.

FEAR, CURSE OF THE RACE 253

Then, again, it enhances tremendously the
power of all the other mental faculties. Cour-
age compensates for many defects and weak-
nesses.

A man who is filled with fear is not a real
man. He is a puppet, a mannikin, an apology
of a man.

Quit fearing things that may never happen,
just as you would quit any bad practice which
has caused you suffering. Fill your mind
with courage, hope, and confidence.

Do not wait until fear thoughts become in-
trenched in your mind and your imagination.
Do not dwell upon them. Apply the antidote
instantly, and the enemies will flee. There is
no fear so great or intrenched so deeply in the
mind that it cannot be neutralized or entirely
eradicated by its opposite. The opposite sug-
gestion will kill it.

Once Dr. Chalmers was riding on a stage-
coach beside the driver, and he noticed that
John kept hitting the off leader a severe
crack with his whip. When he asked him why
he did this, John answered : " Away yonder
there is a white stone ; that off leader is afraid
of that stone; so by the crack of my whip
and the pain in his legs I w'ant to get his idea
off from it." Dr. Chalmers went home, elabo-

254 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

rated the idea, and wrote " The Expulsive
Power of a New Affection." You must drive
out fear by putting a new idea into the mind.

Fear, in any of its expressions, like worry
or anxiety, cannot live an instant in your mind
in the presence of the thought, the image of
courage, fearlessness, confidence, hope, self-
assurance, self-reliance. Fear is a consciousness
of weakness. It is only when you doubt your
ability to cope with the thing you dread that
fear is possible. Fear of disease, even, comes
from a consciousness that you will not be able
to successfully combat it.

Napoleon used to visit the plague hospitals
even when the physicians dreaded to go, and
actually put his hands upon the plague-stricken
patients. He said the man who was not afraid
could vanquish the plague.

Dr. Tuke, in his splendid book, " Influence
of the Mind Upon the Body," says that many
diseases are produced by fear, in its' various
forms. " Insanity, idiocy, paralysis of various
muscles and organs, profuse perspirations,
cholerina, jaundice, turning of the hair gray
in a short time, baldness, sudden decay of the
teeth, nervous shock followed by fatal anaemia,
uterine troubles, malformation of embryo
through the mother, skin disease — such as

FEAR, CURSE OF THE RACE 255

erysipelas, eczema, and many other diseases,"
he declares, " are produced by these terrible
health enemies."

He further says that " when yellow fever,
cholera, smallpox, diphtheria, and other malig-
nant diseases obtain a footing in a community,
hundreds and thousands of people fall victims
to their mental conditions, which invite the at-
tack (by destroying the resisting and protect-
ing power of the body) and insure its fatality."

During an epidemic of a dreaded contagious
disease, people who are especially susceptible
and full of fear become panic-stricken through
the cumulative effect of hearing the subject
talked about and discussed on every hand and
the vivid pictures which come from reading
the newspapers. Their minds (as in the case
of yellow fever) become full of images of the
disease, of its symptoms — black vomit, delir-
ium,— and of death, mourning, and funerals.

Dr. W. H. Holcomb, an authority upon con-
tagious diseases, gives it as his opinion that,
in a case of extreme fear, no microbes or bac-
teria are needed to produce an outburst of
yellow fever. Fear itself is a contagious dis-
ease. It needs no speech or sign to propagate
it. It passes from one to another with light-
ning speed, he says. Thus, malignant influ-

256 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

ences may be cast around us by even our best
friends and would-be helpers.

Dr. Holcomb refers to an extensive epi-
demic of fear throughout the Southern States,
in 1888, when yellow fever was in Jackson-
ville, Fla. This mental malady, he says, visited
all the little towns and villages in the South.
There was exhibited on a small scale in those
localities that same principle of terror which is
manifested in a burning theatre, on a sinking
ship, or in a stampeded army, when brave men
suddenly become cowards, wise men fools, and
merciful men brutes. Truly, something ought
to be done for the moral treatment of yellow
fever.

A noted authority says that in the case of
pulmonary consumption we are now witness-
ing a non-contagious disease in the very
process of transformation into a contagious
disease through centuries of fear, worry, and
terror. There is no doubt that multitudes of
people have developed this dreaded disease
mentally from the very deterioration in the
body caused by the constant presence of terror
in the mind. Dr. Loomis actually classifies
tuberculosis among the miasmatic contagious
diseases — fear will do the rest.

The recent cholera epidemic in Russia gave

FEAR, CURSE OF THE RACE 257

a remarkable instance of the paralyzing effect
of fright or terror upon people, especially the
ignorant classes. ]\Iany persons who were
taken to the hospitals apparently affected
with all the characteristic symptoms of the dis-
ease, were found, upon examination, to be suf-
fering from nothing whatever except fear.
There was not in reality a single physical indi-
cation of the disease itself. The prefect of St.
Petersburg was obliged to issue a proclamation
to allay the fear panic. Even in cases of real
cholera, persons died in fifteen minutes after
contracting the disease. There is no doubt that
the dread of it increased the fatality of the
disease, and hastened the end by destroying
or paralyzing the natural resisting power of
the body.

The sacred books of all nations, except the
Chinese, give much prominence to the motive
of fear. It has been used for spiritual control,
even as it has been, time out of mind, for dis-
cipline in the domestic circle.

Much of our so-called " Christianity " has
been merely nominal ; superstitions of pagan
Europe have intermingled with the religious
teachings of Christendom, the fear motive be-
ing thus so emphasized as to terrorize the com-
mon mind.

258 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

Think of the terrible sugg-estions which the
old-time preacher put into the minds of his
flock through his sermons on eternal punish-
ment and the unpardonable sin. Think of pro-
jecting such horrible pictures upon the mind
of a child!

The happiness of vast multitudes of people
has been ruined by the fear of punishment after
death. I have seen mothers made miserable
for many years because their sons or daugh-
ters could not accept the doctrine of eternal
punishment ; could not believe that the Creator
would be ultimately foiled in His effort to
bring His own children into harmony and hap-
piness.

Who can ever estimate the suflfering, the
anxiety, the baseless remorse, which the old
doctrines of everlasting punishment and hell
fire caused among the early Puritans and their
descendants? Doubtless the old-time clergy-
men honestly believed they were justified in
using the fear club as a check to crime, and no
doubt many people have been kept from com-
mitting great offences through fear of eternal
punishment; but who can ever estimate the
harm, the awful suffering, which these frightful
suggestions have caused good people? If the
Church in all ages had put the same emphasis

FEAR, CURSE OF THE RACE 259

upon the power of love to reform and to re-
generate as it has upon the awful consequences
of sin, the world would be much further ad-
vanced to-day and the race would be free from
its worst fetter, its greatest enemy — Fear.

Most of us are haunted by fear of some-
thing great or small, either in the seen or the
unseen world. Millions are tied down by all
kinds of foolish superstitions ; we are still ham-
pered by traditions, by " bogies " and fears, by
myths of good luck and bad luck, that have
been handed down from generation to genera-
tion. We are still the slaves of ideas born of
ignorance, and that have long ago been swept
aside by education and science as the baseless
figments of a crude civilization or utter sav-
agery.

Many, even, who affect to laugh at silly
superstitions, are unconsciously influenced by
them. How many intelligent people, for in-
stance, are affected by the superstitions about
Friday and the number thirteen! It does not
seem possible that a child ten years old can
be so silly as to believe that there is any power
in mere figures to harm him, yet mature men
and women dread them as some tangible evil
thing. Some hotels have no room or suite of
that number, because they find them unrent-

26o PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

able, and many builders will not allow their
houses to be so numbered. They use twelve
and a half instead.

Think of an inanimate sign, or mechanical
figures, which could not even move themselves
a hairbreadth in eons of time, think of their
moving human beings or having anything
whatever to do with their fate ! If the number
thirteen can influence a human being, how does
it do it? There can be no effect without a
cause. Can these figures move? Is there any
life, any force in them? Can they cause any-
thing? Do they know anything? Is there any
intelligence in them? Did any one ever see
anything that they have accomplished ?

Actors and singers, as a class, are particu-
larly noted for their superstitions. An amusing
instance of their slavish subservience to the
" 13 " superstition occurred recently in New
York.

Signor Campanini, the Italian director of the
Manhattan Opera House, with a number of
grand opera " stars," arrived in New York
harbor aboard the North German Lloyd
steamer, Kaiser Wilhehn dcr Grosse, on Octo-
ber 13th. In spite of the pleadings of Oscar
Hammerstein, impresario of the Manhattan
Opera House, neither the director nor any of

FEAR, CURSE OF THE RACE 261

the singers could be persuaded to land, be-
cause, they said, they dared not take the
chance of having bad luck by landing on
the thirteenth,

" It is curious, no doubt," Campanini said to
an interviewer, " but most Italians and all
artists avoid doing anything important on the
thirteenth of the month. Had I landed last
night I should have been most unhappy. So
would my wife [Eva Tetrazzini]. We would
have feared for the success of the Manhattan
opera season. Not that we feel ourselves to be
the greatest element of success of the company,
but some dire catastrophe might come to the
company through us. Feeling thus, I would not
have braved the hoodoo of landing on October
13th for anything."

What possible power can an arbitrary day
of the week have upon any human being? The
day we call Friday is a mere mechanical divi-
sion of time, a mere arbitrary name of the
sixth day of the week, given it by man for his
own convenience. Is there any intelligence in
the word Friday, any brain, force, or life
there? Then, if not, how can it cause any
disaster to your enterprises? Nevertheless, the
superstition of " Unlucky Friday " has a pow-
erful influence upon multitudes of lives. There

262 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

are thousands of men and women who would
never think of starting on a journey or of
beginning an important undertaking on this
day.

Then there are others who are slaves to the
clairvoyant fortune-tellers. Think of the thou-
sands of people who are made wretchedly un-
happy and lose courage and heart because of
the cruel predictions of these ignorant people !
I know some very intelligent men and women
who live under the domination of these fortune
quacks. They undertake nothing of importance
without consulting the astrologer or clair-
voyant. If they lose anything, they immediately
go to these people for advice.

Think of the influence of being told that
some misfortune will overtake one at a certain
age, that he will lose his wife and children at
a certain time, or that he will die at the age
of forty !

No wonder that many of these things come
to pass, because it is a scientific law of thought
that what we greatly fear tends to come to us.

When Lord Byron was a boy, he was told
by a fortune-teller that he would die in the
thirty-seventh year of his age. The thought
haunted him, and when he became ill during
that year he said there was no hope of his

FEAR, CURSE OF THE RACE 263

recovery, that it was destined he should die
within that year. This conviction destroyed his
power of disease resistance, and he succumbed
to the malady from which he was suffering.
Only recently a New York man committed
suicide because his horoscope warned him of
three fatal days in his life — the thirteenth, the
twenty-seventh, and the thirtieth of a certain
month.

It is impossible to convince children who
have had colored mammies for nurses that
there are not such things as ghosts. They peo-
ple the darkness with all sorts of hobgoblins,
and think the " Bogey Man " will spirit them
away if they dare go into a dark place alone.
Many white people of the South are saturated
with superstition absorbed from their colored
mammies.

A volume could be filled with the silly and
ignorant superstitions that fetter and hold
down not only savage peoples and the unedu-
cated of the higher races, but also millions of
the intelligent and educated all over the world.
Superstition has always and everywhere ac-
companied ignorance ; the more ignorant a
people, the more superstitious they are ; and the
more enlightened and educated they become,
the freer they are from all superstitious ideas.

264 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

All errors die hard, but the school and the
college, the periodical and the newspaper of
to-day are burying-grounds for vast numbers
of superstitions. When a young student begins
to think for himself, to get his eyes open, he
associates his old fears and superstitions with
ignorance and is ashamed to be influenced by
them any longer.

The best of all cures for superstition or fear
is the knowledge that it has no reality, but is
only a creature of the imagination, a picture
drawn by a morbid mind. The perfectly healthy
mind knows no fear.

If fear, in all its phases, could be removed
from the human mind, civilization would go
forward by leaps and bounds. It is this ghastly
spectre that is holding many people down. It
causes more suffering, more loss, more mis-
fortune, more failure, and makes more real
slaves than any actual factor in human life.
Yet, notwithstanding the terrible grip this
monster has upon human life, it can be con-
quered, thrust out of our lives absolutely, as
easily as any other mental foe or enemy of
our peace and happiness.

The new philosophy teaches us that we are
practically the masters of our own destiny ;
that we can, by counter suggestions, kill any

FEAR, CURSE OF THE RACE 265

of our prosperity or happiness enemies. It
teaches us that there is no great power in
the universe that sends misfortunes, but, on
the contrary, that there is a great creative
Power which holds us, shields us, and be-
stows on us all the bounty and prosperity,
all the happiness and blessedness we open
our minds to receive.

The coming man will not be fettered or held
down by superstitions of any kind ; he will have
no fear, because he will have the knowledge
which shows him that all fears are but ghosts,
without entity — mere phantoms, creations of a
disordered imagination, children of ignorance.

XV. SELF-CONTROL VS. THE
EXPLOSIVE PASSIONS

XV. SELF-CONTROL VS.
EXPLOSIVE PASSIONS

THE

ROVE to me," says Mrs. Oli-
phant, " that you can control
yourself, and I'll say you're
an educated man ; and with-
out this, all other education
is good for next to nothing."
No one can expect to ac-
complish anything very great when he is not
king of himself.

The lack of self-control has ruined multi-
tudes of men with high ambition, rare ability,
and great education, men of immense promise
in every way.

Every day the papers tell us of those who,
in a fit of anger, have struck the fatal blow
or fired the cruel shot that has cost them a
friend and their own lives or liberty.

Ask the wretched victims in our state prisons
and in our penitentiaries what a hot temper
has cost them. How many of these unfortu-
nates have lost their liberty for life through a
fit of hot temper which may have lasted but a
minute ! The cruel shot was fired, the trigger
was pulled in an instant, but the friend re-
turned never, the crime could not be undone.

269

270 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

Oh, the tragedies that have been enacted
when the blood was hot with anger !

Many a man has lost a good position, has
sacrificed the opportunity of a lifetime in a
fit of bad temper. He has thrown away in the
anger of a moment, perhaps, the work and
experience of years in climbing to his position.

I know a very able editor who has occupied
splendid positions on the best and greatest
dailies in the country. He is a forceful, vigor-
ous, masterful writer on a great variety of sub-
jects, a fine historian, and a warm, tender-
hearted man, who will do anything for any
one in need, and yet he is almost a total
failure because of his explosive temper. He
does riot hesitate in the heat of a moment's
anger to walk out of a position which it has
taken him years to get. This man is conscious
of ability second to none, yet he has drifted
from pillar to post, hardly able to support his
family, and he must go through life conscious
that he is the slave of a bad temper.

Everywhere we see victims of an uncon-
trolled temper tripping themselves up, losing
in a few moments, perhaps, all they have
gained in months, or maybe in a lifetime. They
are continually climbing and dropping back-
ward.

THE EXPLOSIVE PASSIONS 271

I know several old men whose whole ca-
reers have been crippled by their hot tempers.
They could not refrain from giving people
with whom they had differences " a piece of
their mind." No matter how adversely it af-
fected their own interests, or what was at
stake, they would let their tongues and tem-
pers have full sway.

A pretty costly business, this, of giving an-
other person " a piece of your mind " when
your temper is up !

I know a very able business man who has
practically ruined his reputation and his busi-
ness by his passion for telling people what he
thinks when he gets angry with them. When
his temper is aroused there is nothing too mean
or contemptible for him to say. He calls them
all sorts of names. He raves without reason
or sense. He drives his employees away from
him. It is almost impossible for him to keep
any one with any spirit or ability.

I have seen people in the grip of passion or
anger act more like demons than human be-
ings. I recall one man who, when possessed by
one of these terrible fits of anger, would smash
everything he could lay his hands on, and pour
forth a volley of the vilest abuse upon any one
who got in his way or attempted to restrain

272 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

him. I have seen him almost kill animals in
his rage by striking them with clubs or fence
sticks. His eyes would glare like a madman's
and people who knew him would run for their
lives. He was for the time a maniac and did
not seem to have the slightest idea of what he
was doing when this demon of anger had pos-
session of him. After his passion storm had
subsided, although a robust man, he would be
completely exhausted for a long time.

A man in a fit of uncontrolled passion is
really temporarily insane. He is under control
of the demon in him. No man is sane when
he cannot completely control his acts. While in
that condition he is liable to do things which
he would regret all the rest of his life. Many a
man has been obliged to look back over a
scarred discordant life, a life filled with un-
utterable mortifications and humiliations be-
cause of a hot temper, because he did not learn
to control himself.

What writer, what artist could ever depict
the havoc which the whole brood of evil pas-
sions— anger, jealousy, revenge, and hatred —
have played in human lives. Just think of the
effect on one's character of harboring for
many years the determination, the passion to
get square with an imagined enemy, and of

THE EXPLOSIVE PASSIONS 273

waiting for the opportunity to wreak ven-
geance upon some one.

Think how much a violent explosion of tem-
per takes out of one's entire system, mental
and physical ! Much more than many weeks of
hard work when in a normal condition. And
then picture, if you can, the terrible after suf-
fering, the humiliation of it all, the remorse
and chagrin, the loss of self-respect, the shock
to one's finer sensibilities, when one comes to
himself and realizes what has happened !

A fit of anger may work greater damage
to the body and character than a drunken
bout. Hatred may leave worse scars upon a
clean life than the bottle. Jealousy, envy, an-
ger, uncontrolled grief may do more to wreck
the physical life than many years of excessive
smoking. Anxiety, fretting, and scolding may
instil a more subtle poison into the system than
the cigarette.

" Many a soul is in a bad condition to-day
because of the fire of anger which recently
burned there."

There is no doubt that an uncontrolled tem-
per shortens many lives. Some people fly into
such a rage that they will tremble for hours
afterwards and be wholly unfitted for business
or work.

274 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

I have known a whole family completely to
upset their physical conditions and make them-
selves ill by a violent quarrel. They would
almost tear one another to pieces by their ex-
plosive passions. In a shcit time their faces
were transformed. You could see the demons
of passion fighting there. We all know that
such quarrelling, as well as backbiting, twit-
ting, denunciation, and criticism can produce
but one result, and that it would be simply im-
possible for such causes to produce harmony.

How many people at the mercy of an uncon-
trolled passion have slain members of their own
family or friends whom ten minutes before
nothing could have induced them to harm!
Naturally good people commit fiendish crimes
when blinded by passion.

I know a woman who allows herself to be so
swept away by a storm of rage that after it has
subsided she is completely exhausted ; for days
she is as weak as a child and looks as though
she had been through some terrible ordeal. A
violent headache, or some other form of physi-
cal disturbance, invariably follows.

Physicians well know how violent fits of
jealousy tear the nervous system to pieces so
that the victim is often a complete wreck for
a long time. I have seen a woman so trans-

THE EXPLOSIVE PASSIONS 275

formed in a single year by the domination of
this terrible demon in the mind that her friends
scarcely knew her.

When jealousy once gets possession of a per-
son it changes and colors the whole outlook
upon life. Everything takes on the hue of this
consuming passion. The reasoning faculties are
paralyzed, and the victim is completely within
the clutches of this thought fiend. Even the
brain structure is changed by the harboring of
this fearful mental foe.

Every little while we see accounts of people
who have dropped dead in a fit of passion.
The nervous shock of sudden and violent rage,
no matter what the cause, is so great that it
will sometimes stop the action of the heart,
especially if that organ is weak. Violent
paroxysms of anger have often produced apo-
plexy. A temper storm raging through the
brain develops rank poison and leaves all
sorts of devastation behind.

We often suffer tortures from the humilia-
tion and loss of self-respect we bring upon our-
selves by indulgence in fits of anger, in jeal-
ousy, hatred, or revenge ; but we do not realize
the permanent damage, the irreparable injury,
we inflict upon our entire physical and mental
being.

276 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

An uncontrolled passion in the mind actually
changes the chemical composition of the vari-
ous secretions of the body, developing deadly
poisons. Because the mental forces are silent,
we do not realize how tremendously power-
ful they are. We have been so accustomed to
think of disease and all forms of physical ills
as the result of some derangement in the body,
and have associated their cure with drugs or
other remedies, that it is difficult for us to look
upon them as caused by mental disturbances or
discords.

It is well known that a violent fit of temper
affects the heart instantly, and psychophysi-
cists have discovered the presence of poison in
the blood immediately after the mental storm
has passed. This explains why we feel so de-
pressed, so exhausted and nervous after all
storms of passion, fear, worry, jealousy, or
revenge have swept through the mind. It is
because of the mental poison and other harm-
ful secretions they have left in the brain and
blood.

There is no constitution so strong but it will
ultimately succumb to the constant racking and
twisting of the nerve centres caused by an
uncontrolled temper. Every time you become
angry you reverse all of the normal, mental,

THE EXPLOSIVE PASSIONS 277

and physical processes. Everything in you re-
bels against passion storms ; every mental fac-
ulty protests against their abuse.

If people only realized what havoc indul-
gence in hot temper plays in their delicate
nervous structure, if they could only see with
the physical eyes the damage done, as they can
see what follows in the wake of a tornado,
they would not dare to get angry.

The poison generated by angry passions cir-
culating in the blood, affects the centres of life
throughout the whole body. The delicate cells
of the brain and nerves and all of the internal
organs, are deteriorated by the poison-vitiated
blood.

One reason why so many people either have
poor or indifferent health is because the cell
life is continually starved and dwarfed by
vitiated blood. No one can have abundant,
abounding life, a superb vitality ; can reach his
greatest efficiency, when this mental poisoning
process is constantly going on in his system.

Nothing else racks and wrenches the deli-
cate nervous system more than fits of uncon-
trolled temper, jealousy, or raging passion of
any sort. The brain and nervous mechanism
were intended to run quietly, smoothly, har-
moniously, and when so run they are capable

278 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

of an enormous output in good work and hap-
piness. But, like a delicate piece of material
machinery, when overspeeded or not properly
oiled, or when run without a balance wheel to
steady their motion, they will very quickly
shake themselves to pieces.

The man who scolds and frets and fumes
and lets his temper get the better of him, little
realizes what havoc his humor is playing inside
of him, or how he is breaking down his health
and shortening his life.

There is something wrong in the education,
the training of the man who cannot control
himself, who has to confess that he is a man
part of the time only, that the rest of the time
he is a brute ; that often the beast in him is
loose and runs riot in his mental kingdom and
does what it will until he can get control of
himself again.

Zopyrus, the physiognomist, said : " Soc-
rates' features showed that he was stupid,
brutal, sensual, and addicted to drunkenness."
Socrates upheld the analysis by saying : " By
nature I am addicted to all these sins, and they
were only restrained and vanquished by the
continual practice of virtue."

The Creator has implanted in every man a
divine power that is more than a match for his

THE EXPLOSIVE PASSIONS 279

worst passion, for his most vicious trait. If he
will only develop and use this power he need
not be the slave of any vice.

Shakespeare says : " Assume a virtue if you
have it not."

Emerson also says, in eflfect : " The virtue =
you would like to have, assume it as already
yours, appropriate it, enter into the part and
live the character just as the great actor is
absorbed in the character of the part he plays."
No matter how great your weakness or how
much you may regret it, assume steadily and
persistently its opposite until you acquire the
habit of holding that thought, or of living the
thing, not in its weakness, but in its wholeness,
in its entirety. Hold the ideal of an efficient
faculty or quality, not of a marred or deficient
one. The way to reach or to attain to anything
is to bend oneself toward it with all one's
might, and we approximate it just in propor-
tion to the intensity and the persistency of our
eflfort to attain it.

If you are inclined to storm and rage, or if'
you " fly all to pieces " over the least annoy-
ance, do not waste your time regretting this
weakness, and telling everybody that you can-
not help it. Just assume the calm, deliberate,
quiet, balanced composure which characterizes

28o PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

your ideal person in that respect. Persuade
yourself that you are not hot-tempered, ner-
vous, or excitable, that you can control your-
self; that you are well balanced; that you do
not fly off at a tangent at every little annoy-
ance. You will be amazed to see how the per-
petual holding of this serene, calm, quiet atti-
tude will help you to become like your thought.
No matter what comes up, no matter how
annoying, or exasperating things may be, or
how excited or disturbed other people around
you may be, you will not be thrown off your
centre. All we are or ever have been or ever
will be comes from the quality and force of
our thinking.

A bad temper is largely the result of false
pride, selfishness, and cheap vanity, and no
man who is worthy the name will continue to
be governed by it. There is nothing manly or
noble in the quality which lets loose the " dogs
of war," which in an instant may make ene-
mies of our best friends.

We all know how hard it is to control our
feelings and our words when the blood flows
hot through the frenzied brain, but we also
know how dangerous, how fatal it is to become
slaves to temper. It not only ruins the disposi-
tion and cripples efficiency, but it is also very

THE EXPLOSIVE PASSIONS 281

humiliating; for a man who cannot control
his own acts has to acknowledge that he is
not his own master.

It is dangerous for you even for a few min-
utes to get down off the throne of your reason
and let the beast in you reign. Many a person
has become permanently insane by the growth
of the habit of losing his temper.

Think of a man who was intended to be ab-
solutely master of all the forces of the universe,
stepping down off the throne of his reason and
admitting that he is not a man for the time
being, confessing his inability to control his
own acts, allowing himself to do the mean and
low things, to say the cruel words that hurt
and sting, to throw the hot javelin of sarcasm
into the mind of a perfectly innocent person !
Think of that madness which makes a man
strike down his best friend, or cut him to the
quick with the cruel word !

Anger is temporary insanity. A man must
be insane when he is in the clutches of a demon
that has no regard for life or reputation, a
demon which would bid him kill his best
friend without an instant's hesitation.

The child learns by experience to avoid
touching hot things that will burn him, sharj)
things that will cut him ; but many of us adults

282 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

never learn to avoid the hot temper which sears
and gives us such intense suffering, sometimes
for days and weeks.

The man who has learned the secret of right
thinking and self-control knows just as well
how to protect himself from his mental enemies
as his physical ones. He knows that when the
brain is on fire with passion, it will not do to
add more fuel by storming and raging, but will
quietly apply an antidote which will put out the
fire — the serenity thought, the thought of
peace, quiet, and harmony. The opposite
thought will very quickly antidote the flames.
When a neighbor's house is on fire, we do
not run with an oil-can to put out the flames ;
we do not throw on kerosene, but an antidote.
Yet when a child is on fire with passion we
have been in the habit of trying to put out
the fire by adding fuel to it. What misery,
what crime, what untold suffering might be
prevented by training children to self-control,
by directing their thought into proper chan-
nels!

If we see a person who is mired in a swamp
and desperately struggling to extricate himself,
we run to his rescue without hesitation. We
would not think of adding to his distress or
danger by pushing him in deeper. But some-

THE EXPLOSIVE PASSIONS 283

how when a person is angered, instead of tr>^-
ing to put out the fire of his passion, we only
add fuel to the flames. Yet people who have
bad tempers are often grateful to those who
will help them to do what they are not able
to do themselves, to control them and prevent
them from saying and doing that which will
give them much chagrin afterward.

When next you see a person whose inflam-
mable passion is just ready to explode, and
you know that he is doing his best to hold him-
self down, why not help him, instead of throw-
ing on more inflammable material and starting
the conflagration?

By doing this, you will not only render him
a great service, but you will also strengthen
your own power of self-control. The man who
cannot control himself is like a mariner with-
out a compass — he is at the mercy of every
wind that blows. Every storm of passion, every
wave of irresponsible thought buffets him
hither and thither, drives him out of his course,
and makes it wellnigh impossible for him to
reach the goal of his desires.

Self-control is the very essence of character.
To be able to look a man straight in the eye,
calmly and deliberately, without the slightest
rufile of temper under extreme provocation,

284 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

gives a sense of power which nothing else can
give. To feel that you are always, not some-
times, master of yourself gives a dignity and
strength to character, buttresses it, supports it
on every side, as nothing else can. This is the
culmination of thought mastery.

XVI. GOOD CHEER— GOD'S
MEDICINE

XVI. GOOD CHEER— GOD'S
MEDICINE

Mirth is God's medicine, everybody ought to bathe
in it. Grim care, moroseness, anxiety — all the rust of
life — ought to be scoured oflF by the oil of mirth. —
Oliver Wentjell Holmes.

"Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without
your woe."

WOMAN in California, who,
because of crushing sorrow,
had fallen a victim to de-
spondency, insomnia, and kin-
dred ills, determined to throw
off the gloom which was mak-
ing life so heavy a burden to
her, and established a rule that she would
laugh at least three times a day, whether
occasion presented or not. Accordingly, she
trained herself to laugh heartily at the least
provocation, and would retire to her room and
make merry by herself. She was soon in ex-
cellent health and buoyant spirits, and her
home became a sunny, cheerful abode.

If people only knew the medicinal power of
laughter, of good cheer, of the constant un-
repressed expression of joy and gladness, half
the physicians would be out of work.

287

288 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

Did not Lycurgus set up the god of laughter
in the Spartan eating-halls because he thought
there was no sauce like laughter at meals ?

Laughter is undoubtedly one of Nature's
greatest tonics. It brings the disordered facul-
ties and functions into harmony; it lubricates,
the mental bearings and prevents the friction
which monotonous, exacting business engen-
ders. It is a divine gift bestowed upon us as a
life-preserver, a health-promoter, a joy-gener-
ator, a success-maker.

Laughter, like an air cushion, eases you over
the jolts and the hard places on life's highway.
Laughter is always healthy. It tends to bring
every abnormal condition back to the normal.
It is a panacea for heartaches, for life's bruises.
It is a life prolonger. People who keep them-
selves in physical and mental harmony through
hearty laughter are likely to live longer than
those who take life too seriously.

In order to become normal, the natural fun-
loving forces within us must be released.
Laughter is one form of exercise which sets
them free, rescues men from the " blues."

Somewhere I have read of a man whose
" laughing muscles " were so paralyzed that
his laughter sounded like a voice from the
tombs. American life is so serious that many

GOOD CHEER 289

men lose their power to laugh. They can force
a little sepulchral chuckle, but the genuine side-
shaking laughter is almost a stranger to their
experience. They are in such a serious chase
after the dollar, their life is so strenuous, so
given to ^viv;heming and planning, that they
do not have much time to laugh. They do
not know the medicinal value there is in the
habit of laughter, how it clears the cobwebs
out of the brain, disposes of the fangs of worry
and anxiety and business pressure, takes the
mind off the grind of things, removes friction,
and helps to make life worth while.

To people who have lost the laughing habit
I would say : Lock yourself in your room and
practise smiling. Smile at your pictures, fur-
niture, looking-glass, anything, just so the stiff
muscles are brought into play again.

In a corner of his desk Lincoln kept a copy
of the latest humorous iclork, and it was his
habit when fatigued, annoyed, or depressed, to
take this up and read a chapter for relief.
Humor, whether clean, sensible wit or sheer
nonsense — whatever provokes t tnth and makes
a man jollier — is a gift from heaven.

Laughter is a very important element in a
successful career. Many a man who could have
been a success sleeps in a failure's grave to-

290 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

day because he took life too seriously. He
poisoned the atmosphere about him, so that it
became unhealthy, and paralyzed his own
powers.

We often hear people, especially delicate
women who have nervous dyspepr -" say they
do not understand how it is that they can go
out to late suppers or banquets and eat heartily
all sorts of incongruous food without feeling
any inconvenience afterward.

They do not realize that it is due to the
change in the mental attitude. They have had
a good time; they have enjoyed themselves.
The lively conversation, the jokes which caused
them to laugh heartily, the bright, cheerful en-
vironment, completely changed their mental
attitude, and of course these conditions were
reflected in the digestion and every other part
of the system, for lar^hter and good cheer are
enemies of dyspep'O •. Anything which will
divert the dyspeptic's mind from his ailments
will improve his digestion. When they were at
home worryini^ over their health, swallowing a
little dyspe;''Cuewith every mouthful of food,
of course these women could not assimilate
what they ate. But when they were having a
jolly good time they forgot their ailments, and
were surprised afterward to find that they had

GOOD CHEER 291

enjoyed their food and that it did not hurt
them. The whole process is mental.

Use the laugh-cure — the fun-cure — in the
home. Throw away the drugs and save doc-
tors' bills.

" The power of cheerfulness to do good,"
says Dr. Sanderson, "... is not an artificial
stimulus of the tissues, to be followed by reac-
tion and greater waste, as is the case with many
drugs ; but the effect of cheerfulness is an ac-
tual life-giving influence throughout a normal
channel, the results of which reach every part
of the system. It brightens the eye, makes
ruddy the countenance, brings elasticity to the
step, and promotes all the inner force by which
life is sustained. The blood circulates more
freely, the oxygen comes to its home in the
tissues, health is promoted and disease is ban-
ished."

There is no drug which can compete with
cheerfulness. A jolly, whole-hearted, sunny
physician is worth more than all the remedies
in an apothecary shop. What magic we often
see wrought by the arrival of the physician,
especially when the patient is frightened and
nervous. Discouragement, the hopeless expres-
sion, are driven away by his reassuring, con-
fident smile, and many times even severe pain

292 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

is relieved by his mental uplift and encour-
agement.

How eagerly the patient watches the doc-
tor's face for a ray of hope. No drug could
work such magic as does that one encourag-
ing look.

A friend remembers how, as a boy, when the
old family physician used to come to the home
so full of life and joy and gladness, with sun-
shine beaming from every pore, members of
the family would feel absolutely ashamed to
be sick, ashamed to think that God's work,
which was made perfect, should need patch-
ing up.

" The whole atmosphere of the house," he
said, " seemed to change the minute the doctor
entered. His hearty laugh, ringing through the
rooms, as he rubbed his hands before the fire
on a cold winter day, and his mere presence,
did us more good than pills or potions. Some-
how, the very thought of his coming after we
had sent for him seemed to drive away our
troubles."

One of the most successful physicians in
Boston gives very little medicine. His merry
face and cheerful disposition take the sting
out of pain. He replaces despair with hope, dis-
couragement with confidence and a cheerful

GOOD CHEER 293

reassurance, so that the sick feel a decided
uplift in his presence and are filled with a
stronger determination to get well.

Too many of us dry up and become stale,
uninteresting, and abnormal from lack of the
development of the cheerful habit. There is no
one thing which will do so much for the life,
for health, for happiness, as the cultivation of
the cheerful habit, the habit of flinging out
one's joy and gladness everywhere, radiating
good cheer.

The constantly increasing success of the
vaudeville playhouses and other places of
amusement all over this country shows the tre-
mendous demand in the human economy for
fun. Most people do not appreciate that this
demand must be met in some form or the char-
acter will be warped and defective.

What a complete revolution in your whole
physical and mental being takes place after see-
ing a really funny play ! You went to the play
tired, jaded, worn out, discouraged. All your
mental faculties were clogged with brain ash ;
you could not think clearly. When you came
home you were a new being.

A business man, on returning home after
a perplexing, exasj^crating, exhausting day's
work, may experience the same thing. Romp-

294 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

ing and playing with the children, spending
a jolly evening with his family or friends,
telling stories and cracking jokes, rest his
jaded nerves and restore him to his normal
condition. '

I have been as much refreshed by a good,
hearty laugh, by listening to wholesome sto-
ries and jokes, by spending an evening with
friends and having a good time, as by a long,
sound night's sleep ; and I look back upon such
experiences as little vacations.

Anything that will make a man new, that
will clear the cobwebs of discouragement from
his brain and drive away fear, care, and worry,
is of practical value.

We should not look upon fun and humor as
transitory things, but as solid, lasting, perma-
nent medicinal influences on the whole char-
acter.

Why should not having a good time form a
part of our daily programme ? Why should not
this enter into our great life-plan ? Why should
we be serious and gloomy because we have to
work for a living?

There is a moral as well as healing influ-
ence in things which amuse and make us
enjoy life. No one was ever spoiled by good
humor, but tens of thousands have been made

GOOD CHEER 295

better by it. Fun is a food as necessary fo the
wholeness of man as bread.

Who can estimate the good our great hu-
morists have done the world in helping to drive
away care and sorrow, in lightening burdens,
in taking drudgery out of dreary occupations,
in cheering the discouraged and the lonely?

A writer known for his cheerful sayings
received a letter from a lady, stating that one
of his humorous poems had saved her life.

Any one who has brought relief to distressed
souls, who has lifted the burden from saddened,
sorrowing hearts, has done as much good as
any of those who have been civilization
builders.

Few of us really understand the full value
of good cheer and laughter as physiological
and psychological factors. An eminent French
surgeon says that we ought to train children
to habits of mirth.

"Encourage your child to be merry and
laugh aloud," he says. " A good hearty laugh
expands the chest and makes the blood bound
merrily along. Commend me to a good laugh
— not to a little snickering laugh, but to one
that will sound right through the house."

We realize that it is very necessary to train
the mind in business principles ; to train cer-

296 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

tain faculties to do special things, but do not
seem to think it necessary to cultivate the habit
of cheerfulness. Yet not even an education is
as necessary to the child as the formation of
the cheerful habit. This ought to be regarded
as the first essential of the preparation for life
— the training of the mind toward sunshine ;
the developing of every possibility of the cheer-
ful faculties.

The first duty we owe a child is to teach it
to fling out its inborn gladness and joy with
the same freedom and abandon as the bobolink
does when it makes the meadow joyous with
its song. Suppression of the fun-loving nature
of a child means the suppression of its mental
and moral faculties. Joy will go out of the heart
of a child after a while if it is continually sup-
pressed. Mothers who are constantly caution-
ing the little ones not to do this or not to do
that, telling them not to laugh or make a noise,
until they lose their naturalness and become
little old men and women, do not realize the
harm they are doing.

An eminent writer says : " Children without
hilarity will never amount to much. Trees
without blossoms will never bear fruit,"

There is an irrepressible longing for amuse-
ment, for rollicking fun, in young people, and

GOOD CHEER 297

if these longings were more fully met in the
home it would not be so difficult to keep the boy
and girl under the parental roof. I always think
there is something wrong when the father or
the children are so very uneasy to get out of
the house at night and to go off " somewhere "
where they will have a good time. A happy,
joyous home is a powerful magnet to child and
man. The sacred memory of it has kept many
a person from losing his self-respect, and from
the commission of crime.

Fun is the cheapest and best medicine in the
world for your children as well as for your-
self. Give it to them in good large doses. It will
not only save you doctors' bills, but it will also
help to make your children happier, and will
improve their chances in life. We should not
need half so many prisons, insane asylums, and
almshouses if all children had a happy child-
hood.

The very fact that the instinct to play — the
love of fun — is so imperious in the child,
shows a great necessity in its nature which if
suppressed will leave a famine in its life.

A sunny, joyous, happy childhood is to the
individual what a rich soil and genial sun are
to the young plant. If the early conditions are
not favorable, the plant becomes starved and

298 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

stunted and the results cannot be corrected in
the later trees. It is now or never with the
plant. This is true with the human plant. A
starved, suppressed, stunted childhood makes
a dwarfed man. A joyful, happy, fun-loving
environment develops powers, resources, and
possibilities which would remain dormant in a
cold, dull, repressing environment.

How many lives are blank, dry, as uninter-
esting as a desert because cheerfulness was
crushed out of the child life; because the joys
of childhood were never developed. Their
young lives were suppressed and all that was
sweet and juicy crushed out of them in their
early years.

Everywhere we see men and women discon-
tented and unhappy because of the lack of play
in their early life. When the young clay finally
hardened it was unable to respond to a joyful
environment.

Happy recreation has a very subtle influence
upon the mental faculties, which are empha-
sized and heightened by it. How our courage
is strengthened, our determination, our ambi-
tion, our whole outlook on life changed by it.
There seems to be a subtle fluid from humor
and fun which penetrates the entire being,
bathes all the mental faculties, and washes out

GOOD CHEER 299

the brain ash and debris from exhausted cere-
brum and muscles. We have all experienced
the transforming, refreshing, rejuvenating
power of good, wholesome fun.

Many people make anything like joy or hap-
piness impossible by dwelling upon the dis-
agreeable, the unfortunate, unlucky things of
life. They always see the ugly, the crooked,
the wrong side of things.

I once lived in a clerg}nTian's family where
I scarcely heard a person laugh in months.
It seemed to be a part of the inmates' religion
to wear long faces and to be sober-minded and
solemn. They did not have much use for this
world ; they seemed to be living for the world
to come ; and whenever the minister heard me
laugh, he would remind me that I had bet-
ter be thinking of my " latter end," and pre-
paring for the death which might come at any
moment. Laughter was considered frivolous
and worldly ; and as for playing in the house
— it would not be tolerated for an instant.

Melancholy, solemnity used to be regarded as
a sign of spirituality, but it is now looked upon
as the imprint of a morbid mind. There is no
religion in it. True religion is full of hope, sun-
shine, optimism, and cheerfulness. It is joyous
and glad and beautiful. There is no Christian-

300 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

ity in the ugly, the discordant, the sad. The
reHgion which Christ taught was bright and
beautiful. The sunshine, the " lilies of the
field," the "birds of the air," the hills, the
valleys, the trees, the mountains, the brooks —
all things beautiful — were in His teaching.
There was no cold, dry theology in it. It was
just happy Christianity !

Cheerfulness is one of the great miracle-
workers of the world. It reenforces the whole
man, doubles and trebles his power, and gives
new meaning to his life. No man is a failure
until he has lost his cheerfulness, his optimistic
outlook. The man who does his best and car-
ries a smiling face and keeps cheerful in the
midst of discouragements, when things go
wrong and the way is dark and doubtful, is
sure to win.

" Laugh until I come back," was a noted
clergyman's "good-by" salutation. It is a good
one for us all.

XVII. THE SUN-DIAL'S MOTTO

XVII. THE SUN-DIAL'S MOTTO

N a famous sun-dial it is
written : " I record none but
hours of sunshine." Every
human life would be beauti-
fied by making this a life
motto.

What a great thing it
would be if we could only learn to wipe out
of our memories forever everything unpleas-
ant, everything which brings up bitter memo-
ries and unfortunate associations and depress-
ing, discouraging suggestions! If we could
only keep the mind filled with beautiful
thoughts which uplift and encourage, the
efficiency of our lives would be multiplied.

Are not some people so unfortunately con-
stituted that they are unable to remember
pleasant, agreeable things? When you meet
them they always have some sad story to tell,
something that has happened to them or is
surely going to happen. They tell you about
the accidents, narrow escapes, losses, and af-
flictions they have had. The bright days and
happy experiences they seldom mention. They
recall the disagreeable, the ugly, the discord-
ant. The rainy days make such an impression

303

304 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

upon their minds that they seem to think it
rains about all of the time.

There are others who do just the reverse.
They always talk of the pleasant things, good
times, and agreeable experiences of their lives.
I know some of these people who have had all
sorts of misfortunes, losses, sorrows, and yet
they so seldom speak of them or refer to them,
that you would think they never had had any-
thing in their lives but good fortune, that they
had never had any enemies, that everybody
had been kind to them. These are the people
who attract us, the people we love.

The habit of turning one's sunny side
toward others is a result of the practice of
holding charitable, loving, cheerful thoughts
perpetually in the mind ; while the gloomy, sar-
castic, mean character is formed by harboring
hard, uncharitable, unkind thoughts until the
brain becomes set toward the dark, so that the
life can only radiate gloom.

Some people's minds are like a junk shop;
they contain things of considerable value
mixed with a great deal of rubbish. There is
no system or order in them. These minds retain
everything — good, bad, or indifferent. They
can never bear to throw anything away, for
fear it might be of service at some time, so

THE SUN-DIAL'S MOTTO 305

that their mental storehouses are clogged with
all sorts of rubbish. If these people would only
have a regular house-cleaning and throw away
all the rubbish, everything of a doubtful value,
and systematize and arrange what is left, they
might amount to something; but no one can
do good work with his mind full of discord
and confusion.

Get rid of the mental rubbish. Do not go
through life burdened with non-essential,
meaningless things. Everywhere we see people
who are handicapped, doing everything to a
great disadvantage, because they never will
let go of an}'thing. They are like the over-care-
ful housekeeper, who never throws anything
away, for fear it may be of use in the future,
and whose attic and woodshed, and every
closet and corner in the house, are piled up
with rubbish which " might be wanted some
time." The practice of throwing away rubbish
of all kinds is of inestimable value.

Occasionally we come across minds that are
like public cabs. Now you see in them a good-
looking man or woman — a beautiful character ;
a little later a drunkard or vicious woman. In
other words, the cabman picks up the first
customer he finds, not caring whether he is
good or bad. So this order of mind picks up

3o6 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

all sorts of ideas, good, bad, and indifferent,
without selection or choice. It is like a sponge ;
it absorbs everything that comes near it. It is
impossible for such a mind to be clean, pure,
free from enemy thoughts, conflicting thought
currents, inharmonious vibrations or demoral-
izing influences.

One of the greatest accomplishments of the
finest character is the ability to order his mind
and to exclude from it all the enemy thoughts
— thoughts that bring friction and discord into
the life, thoughts that depress, that stunt, that
darken.

No mind can do good work when clouded
with unhappy or vicious thoughts. The mental
sky must be clear or there can be no enthu-
siasm, no brightness, clearness, or efficiency in
our mental work.

If you would do the maximum of which you
are capable, keep the mind filled with sunshine,
with beauty and truth, with cheerful, uplifting
thoughts. Bury everything that makes you un-
happy and discordant, everything that cramps
your freedom, that worries you, before it buries
you.

The mental temple was not given us for the
storing of low, base, mean things. It was in-
tended for the abode of the gods, for the treas-

THE SUX-DIAL'S AlOTTO 307

VLTing of high purposes, grand aims, noble
aspirations.

It is a shame, and will some time be looked
upon as a disgrace, for a human being bearing
the stamp of divinity to be dominated by base,
unworthy, demoralizing thoughts. The time
will come when one will be as much ashamed
of harboring a disagreeable, discordant, con-
taminating thought as he would feel if he were
caught stealing. When a man once gets a true
perception of himself, of his grandeur and dig-
nity, and infinite possibilities, he will not allow
himself to be dominated by the mental enemies
which now dog him from the cradle to the
grave.

Man was not made to express discord, but
harmony ; to express beauty, truth, love, and
happiness ; wholeness, not halfness ; complete-
ness, not incompleteness.

No one has learned the art of true living
until he has trained his mind to forget every
experience from which he can no longer derive
any advantage — that will hinder his progress
and make him unhappy. Xo matter how great
a mistake you have made, it should be for-
gotten, buried forever. Don't keep digging it
up. You have learned the lesson there is in it
for you. The only good use you can make of

3o8 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

an unfortunate mistake is to make it a start-
ing-point for something better.

What is there to be gained by harboring in-
juries, by dwelhng upon misfortunes, by mor-
bid worrying over our faikires? Did it ever
pay to harbor shghts and imagined insults ?

There is only one thing to do with a dis-
agreeable thought or experience, and that is,
get rid of it ; hurl it out of your mind as you
would a thief out of your house. You cannot
afford to give shelter to enemies of your peace
and comfort.

If you have hard feelings, unkindly thoughts
toward others, if you are trying to " get
square " with some one who has injured you,
or if you are suffering from jealousy, envy, or
hatred, dispel these killing emotions, these dis-
cordant feelings, as vicious enemies. Say to
yourself : " This is not manly, this is not
friendly, this is not humane; these are the
thoughts for the base, degraded ; they are not
the sort of thoughts for one who is trying to
stand for something in the world."

So long as you harbor the hatred thought,
the jealous thought, the revenge, worry, anx-
iety, or fear thought, you must suffer — just as
a pedestrian with gravel in his shoes must
suffer until he removes it.

THE SUN-DIAL'S MOTTO 309

We cannot harbor any grudge, any hatred
against another without suffering a frightful
loss in our own nature. It coarsens, ani-
maHzes, brutalizes us. On the other hand, the
holding of the kindly feeling, the love thought,
the helpful, charitable, magnanimous thought,
ennobles the life, beautifies the character, en-
riches the nature. Our mental attitude gives
its color to the life. What it is, we are like
toward others. If that is hateful, we are hate-
ful ; if that is revengeful, we have a revenge-
ful disposition. We are like our ideals. I have
never known a really good person who had
a mean, contemptible estimate of other people,
or who was always criticising them, question-
ing their motives, imputing to them low, self-
ish motives.

Do not go about nursing some fancied
wrong or insult or grudge against somebody,
cherishing unkind feelings toward any one.
Such thoughts poison the brain. They sting
and corrupt. Bitterness in the heart is like a
leaven, which works its way through the entire
system. The constant dwelling upon bitter
things saps your vitality and lessens your abil-
ity to do something worth while. These are
enemies of your youthfulness, of your happi-
ness and success. You cannot afford to have

3IO PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

them festering in your heart and tormenting
your mind.

Do not remember anything disagreeable
which can cripple your efficiency or mar your
work. Just wipe it out of your memory, no
matter how much it may hurt your pride to
do so. Your great aim should be progress, and
you cannot afiford to have a lot of rubbish
clinging to you which keeps you back or hin-
ders your speed in your life race. You need
all your energv*, every ounce of power you
possess, for the race. Husband your strength
for the main issue. Alake every ounce of force
tell.

Make up your mind to be large, gener-
ous, and charitable, to forget slights or in-
juries, not to harbor malice, but to remember
that most people are kind at heart and would
not intentionally slight or injure you. Show
your charitable side to every one. Be cheerful,
kind, and helpful, no matter what others may
do to you or say about you. Learn always to
put a charitable interpretation upon people's
motives and you will be surprised at the effect
of your attitude, not only upon yourself, but
also upon those with whom you are associated.
The kindly, helpful, sympathetic thought held
toward your enemies will work like a leaven in

THE SUN-DIAL'S MOTTO 311

their characters and change them for the better
a thousand times quicker than seeking revenge
or trying to get even with them.

The man who radiates good cheer to every-
body, who says kind things about people, who
sees in his fellow-man the man God made,
the immortal, perfect man — not the sin-
racked, the vice-scarred man — is the one we
love and admire.

Why should we remember the unkind things
people say of us? If we practised the art of
forgetting these things we should learn to love
where we once hated, to admire where w^e de-
spised, to help where we hindered, to praise
where we criticised.

The good excludes the bad ; the higher al-
ways shuts out the lower ; the greater motive,
the grander affection excludes the lesser, the
lower. The good is more than a match for
the bad.

A wpman who has had great sorrows and
afflictions says : *' I made the resolution that I
would never sadden any one with my troubles.
I have laughed and told jokes when I could
have wept. I have smiled in the face of every
misfortune. I have tried to let every one go
away from my presence with a happy word and
bright thought to carry with them. Happiness '

312 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

makes happiness, and I myself am happier
than I would have been had I sat down and
bemoaned my fate."

When you were in the dumps, " blue " and
discouraged, worried and almost ready to give
up the struggle for the thing you were trying
to reach, did you never meet some sunny,
jovial, humorous character, through whose in-
fluence it seemed that the whole world was
changed in a few minutes — the whole atmos-
phere cleared of bogies and haunting skeletons
— and you caught the contagion of the humor
and good cheer, and were another person?
This was due only to your change of thought.
the new suggestions held in your mind. It was
only a question of the expulsive power of a
stronger motive, affection, or idea. If we only
knew the philosophy of this expulsive power
of a stronger, higher motive to drive out the
weaker or the lower, we could quickly clear
the mental atmosphere of all the clouds of
doubt and despair, of all worry and anxiety
and uncertainty by substituting their opposites.

If we did not harbor in the mind the things
that are not good for us, they would not make
such a lasting impression upon us. In fact,
they would not get hold of us. It is the har-
boring of them, turning them over and over,

THE SUX-DIAL'S MOTTO 313

thinking of them, that intrenches them in the
mind.

The way to get rid of error is to keep the
mind full of truth ; the way to get rid of dis-
cord is to keep saturated with harmony, the
love thought.

Harmony is the realit}', the entity, the crea-
tive force. The time will come when the child
will be taught from the outset how to protect
himself from insidious enemies of mind and
body, how to keep himself in harmony by al-
ways living in the light of hope and truth,
where ghosts and hideous shadows cannot live.
He will be trained in the knowledge that truth
and beauty, joy and gladness, harmony, good-
will thoughts, health thoughts, will kill their
opposites ; that they have the same effect upon
them that water has upon fire.

XVIII. "AS YE SOW

XVIII. "AS YE SOW"

Thought is another name for fate,
Choose, then, thy destiny, and wait —
For love brings love, and hate brings hate.

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

"Beautiful thoughts crystallize into habits of grace
and kindness, which solidify into genial and sunny
circumstances."

S it not a strange fact that
while men know with abso-
lute ceiiainty that what they
sow or plant in the soil will
come back to them in exact
kind, that it is absolutely im-
possible to sow corn and get
a crop of wheat, they entirely disregard this
law when it comes to mental sowing?

On what principle can we expect a crop of
happiness and contentment when for years we
have been sowing seed thoughts of exactly the
opposite character ? How can we expect a crop
of health when we are all the time sowing dis-
ease thought seeds?

We would think a farmer insane who should
sow thistle seeds all over his farm and expect
to reap wheat. But we sow fear thoughts,
worry thoughts, anxious thoughts, doubt

317

3i8 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

thoughts, and wonder that we are not in per-
petual harmony.

The harvest from our thoughts is just as
much the result of law as that of the farmer's
sowing. Seed corn can only produce corn. A
man's achievement is the harvest, big or little,
beautiful or blighted, abundant or scarce, ac-
cording to the character of the thoughts he
has sown.

A man who sows failure thoughts can no
more reap a success harvest than the farmer
can get a wheat crop from thistles. If he sows
optimistic seed, the harmony, health, purity,
truth thoughts, the thoughts of abundance
and prosperity, of confidence and assurance,
he will reap a corresponding harvest; but if
he sows discord he will reap discordant con-
ditions.

Harmony is power; discord is weakness.
Pessimistic thoughts are thistles which check
the good products and ruin the harvest.

How simple our great life problems would
become if we could only realize that the mental
laws are just as scientific as the physical laws !
Every thought generated in the brain is a seed
which must produce its harvest — thistle or
rose, weed or wheat.

Our careers are the harvests of our mental

"AS YE SOW" 319

sowing. If we sow the wind we shall reap the
whirlwind.

If we sow the thoughts of abundance, of
plenty, we shall reap accordingly; but if we
sow the mean, pinched, sting}- failure thought
we shall reap a poverty harvest. In other
words, the life harvest must follow the thought.
When we see a selfish, repulsive face, we know
that it is the harvest of selfish, vicious sowing.
On the other hand, when we see a calm inspir-
ing face, we know that it has come from the
sowing of harmonious, helpful thought seeds.

If there is any one law of the universe em-
phasized over and above all others, it is that
like produces like everywhere and always.

A person who should take a knife and begin
to slash his flesh until the blood flowed would
be shut up in an insane asylum ; but we are all
the time slashing our mental selves with the
edged thought-tools — hatred, revenge, anger,
jealousy — and yet we think ourselves sane,
normal.

Every thought is a seed which produces a
mental plant exactly like itself. If there is
venom in the seed thoui^ht-platit there zvill be
venom in the fruit which will poison the life,
which will destroy happiness and efficiency.

If you sell yourself to your desires, you

320 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

must expect the harvest to correspond. A man
who sells himself to a selfish life, a life of get-
ting and never giving, must not complain if
there are thistles and thorns in his harvest.
Life is just to us. It gives us what we pay for.
The truth is, many of us ask for things with-
out being willing to pay the price, and, of
course, we receive only as we pay, for Nature
keeps a cash store. She gives us everything we
pay for ; we take away nothing without leaving
the price.

The coming man will know that if he wants
to produce a crop of prosperity he must not
sow failure or poverty seeds, seeds of dis-
couragement or doubt. He will sow the seed
that will produce the crop he wants. If he
wants to produce a character-crop of beauty,
sweetness, and loveliness, he will sow the seeds
of kijidness, love, and helpfulness ; and he will
know that if he sows seeds of hatred, jeal-
ousy, bitterness, and revenge he will get the
same kind of a crop — hideous, noxious weeds.

The coming man will live scientifically. He
will know that there is only one way to pro-
duce physical harmony, vigor, strength ; that
is, by sowing thought-seeds which are akin to
the health crop he seeks. He will be just as
certain of the character of his thought-crop as

"AS YE SOW" 321

the farmer is certain that his harvest will cor-
respond with his seed.

The body is simply a reflection of the mind ;
it cannot be an}'thing else. It would be impos-
sible for a person to hold only beautiful, lov-
ing thoughts in the mind and not have the
body correspond and come into harmony with
the habitual thinking. It is only a question of
time. There is no guess-work about the proc-
esses. There is an absolutely inexorable law:
Like must produce like.

It is impossible for a thief to injure the per-
son he steals from half so much as he injures
himself. He inconveniences his victim, but
stabs himself with a venomous weapon. We
are so constituted that it is impossible to injure
another willingly without injury to ourselves.
If we would be good to ourselves we must
be good to others also. We cannot possibly
strike our neighbor without receiving the
blow ourselves. This is the new philosophy
which Christ taught. Before his day it was
" An eye for an eye," an unkindness for an
unkindness, a thrust for a thrust, a blow for
a blow ; but he taught that we must not strike
back. " Ye have heard that it hath been said.
An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth :
but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil : but

3^2 PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY

whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek,
turn to him the other also."

" Ye have heard that it hath been said. Thou
shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you. Love your enemies, bless
them that curse you, do good to them that hate
you, and pray for them which despitefully use
you and persecute you." This is as scientific
as the laws of chemistry or mathematics.

The coming man will find that indulgence in
retaliation for real or fancied injury, indul-
gence in hatred or revenge, will only rob him
of power and mar his own achievement.

The infant puts his hand in the flame or
on the hot stove until the pain teaches him
better. After we have tortured ourselves with
thoughts which tear and lacerate us, after we
have had experience enough of this kind, we
shall learn that it is too expensive a business,
that we cannot afford to pay such a price for
the sake of '' getting square " with another.
Self-protection will keep us from it when we
know enough.

We may complain of our condition to-day,
but we are simply reaping what we sowed yes-
terday. There is no dodging this reaping. The
only way to get a different harvest to-morrow
is to sow differently to-day. Everything we do,

"AS YE SOW" 323

every thought that passes through our mind,
is a seed which we throw out into the soil, the
world, and which must give a harvest like
itself. Many people complain because their
harvest is so full of thorns, thistles, and weeds ;
but if they analyzed their lives they would find
that they had been sowing seeds of selfishness,
jealousy, and envy. If they had sown seeds of
unselfishness, kindness, happiness, and love,
they would have had a very different kind of
harvest.

The time will come when an intelligent per-
son will no more think of indulging a cruel,
envious, jealous thought toward another than
he would put his hand into the flames.

The future man will not lacerate himself
with vicious thoughts. He will not stab him-
self with jealousy or hatred thoughts, with
fear or sick thoughts, because, like the child
who will not put his hand in the fire after
he has learned that it burns, he will want to
avoid the pain they cause.

THE END

7 9 22

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